Wooden Spoon Carving ☕ Easily Made Coffee Scoop

As I already mentioned in my profile, I’m a coffee addict. Which is why my hubby decided to make a coffee scoop for me. Here I am sharing with you some coffee magic.

Turns out it’s really easy to carve a spoon and even easier to make a coffee scoop.

So first you need to get some proper tools, some wood and a cup of coffee to feel some flavory inspiration.

You can take any wood you want. For example, basswood would work well if you’re new to wood carving. We took a walnut blank as it has a lovely color, I would say it’s quite similar to coffee beans color.

My hubby is an experienced woodcarver and he’s very attentive to details. Which is why he was working with three knives, while you can go even with two: a spoon carving knife + general wood roughing out sloyd knife. But if you intend to have a perfect stylish spoon, then a detail knife would help to make finishing touches with pleasure.

Supplies

whittling knife
spoon carving knife
detail knife
wood blank
glue
paper
sandpaper
pencil

Step 1: After We Figured Out the Right Tools We Need, Next Step Is to Glue Some Pattern to the Blank in Order to Define the Further Route.

Basically the pattern would imitate the shape of the blank. No need to draw something extraordinary.

Step 2: Now Let’s Mark the Side Part of the Future Spoon and Shade the Area That We’ll Remove

This way we should come to the right handle design.

Step 3: Then Shade the Bowl Area of the Spoon That We’ll Remove As Well

As we need a scoop to put there some coffee beans, right? :)

Step 4: Time to Start Hollowing Out the Spoon

Don't worry, it's easy. Just make sure to have a sharp hook knife, as if it doesn't cut well, you'd get troubles hollowing it out.

Step 5: We Did a Good Job Here

As you can see we've got now the right shape of the bowl.

Step 6: Now We’ll Need to Take Care of the Handle

Time to go to the handle. Some carvers experience problems at this stage, as it's easy to get it cracked after one slight movement in the wrong direction. We'd recommend being patient at this stage. Let emotions be buried deep down for some time.

Step 7: Simply Remove the Shaded Area As If You’d Been Peeling Potatoes

The cut is called a "push" cut technique, but it reminds me of the peeling potatoes process :D Make sure to remove only the area you shaded there as it's easy to go behind that. This is where all cracks happen.

Step 8: It's Good to Add Some Finishing Touches With the Detail Knife

Time for a detail knife to come in the game. As the main part is done, we'd need to add slight details to the handle.

Step 9: Some Work at the Place Where Handle Meets the Bowl Should Be Done Quite Attentively

Probably the most dangerous place is where the handle meets the bowl. It's REALLY easy to get too involved in the process and cut the bowl off the handle. The whole idea sounds funny to me, but not sure it's THAT funny when it happens for real :D

Step 10: Time to Sand the Spoon With the Superfine Sandpaper P150

Make sure to get superfine sandpaper. I bet it's not difficult to find it, there is a bunch of those either on Amazon, or some other stores. I'm not even sure where my husband got those, but if you'd have trouble finding some, let me know, I'll check it out for you.

Step 11: Then Some Sandpaper P320 Will Help You Out

One sandpaper is not enough. For a better look, we'd recommend applying the P320 as well. Do that in a slow flowing manner, no strict pattern of actions here, only your feelings to guide you to the smooth surface.

Step 12: We're Almost Done. Let's Polish Spoon With the Oil

If you're planning to use a spoon in the household, and for sure you're planning to do that as it's a coffee scoop :D, then you'd need to cover it with the oil. It gives some nice dark finish to the wood + additional water resistance. We used Danish Oil as it's food safe. You don't want to have some chemical taste on your coffee beans, right?