Ray Mears style bushcraft spooncarving

We are just back from a very enjoyable weekend of spooncarving fun. We ran a carving course for the friends of Chopwell Wood bushcraft group near Newcastle. The site and the folk were perfect. We worked under a large parachute shelter with a nice fire to sit round.

Many folk can use knive pretty well and most of us get allong just learning by trial and error but for woodcarving it is possible to greatly increase our efficiency, speed and enjoyment by analising exactly how the knife is working and learning some new grips and cuts. Friday is a pretty intensive few hours running through these new cuts then Saturday and Sunday we can use the skills to make things. Here is Lizzy the Foresty Commision Ranger making tent pegs with the carving axe.
Eric and Ken concentrating hard, hollowing spoons with the hook knife.

Evenings sat round the campfire are always enjoyable.

And some finished spoons.


We realy enjoyed sharing our skills and had great fun, I'll do another post showing some of the things we learnt whilst there too.