Sunday, 13 January 2013

The best spooncarving films on the web

I have posted links to these individually before but thought it would be good to post them all in one place and some may be new to some folk.

The best spooncarver I have ever seen was Ion Constantin a Romanian Gypsy who I visited with Stuart King in 1998. This is the short film, I have a bunch of slides of the whole process that I must get converted to digital some time. I still use an adze I bought from him on every plate I turn, I also drew round his spoon knife and forged some copies of it. It's not the tools that make him good though it is good technique and years of practice. He made a spoon in 10 minutes from the log including pausing for photos.



Now this is I think the best spooncarving film on youtube.....do let me know if there is a better one out there. Filmed in Sweden in 1923



Good axework from the Algarve



Then this is a series showing how I worked 5 years ago, I have got better since then but it still shows the basics well. This is part 1 showing axe technique.



Part 2 knifework



Part 3 hook knife work



Part 4 my ex Nicola doing finishing work

3 comments:

Dave Esposito said...

This is great Robin. I am a long time admirer of your site and your work. I love your book on Wooden Bowls - I purchased it as soon as it was out. Thank you!
Also, I'm glad you included your own spoon carving instructional videos - you're the one who go me spoon carving so I owe you a lot!
Again, thank you for your dedication to the crafts and for the information you've made available to us all.

Lewis Ward said...

Robin,

Wonderful collection of videos. Will flag this archive.
Is the tool and technique that is used in the Romanian video similar to the Twca Cam? Someone said they would make a video of the twca cam.
Thank you.

Robin Wood said...

Thanks Dave
Lewis, the Romanian tool is a twca cam, folk import foreign words and don't understand them and think it means something special. Twca cam means bent knife in Welsh. Professional carvers the world over use these long handles as they allow various grips that short handles don't.