Lost Art Press

WOODEN spoons re­present a small commodity which can often be made from what is more or less re­garded as waste wood. Except for special cooking purposes, which necessitate lengthy shafts on the spoons, the ordinary article seldom exceeds about a foot in length, and hence all kinds of odd scrap sections can thus be utilised. Yellow pine is claimed to be worked most easily to the desired shape, but white pine and cheaper boxwoods have also been used, so long as the edges can be well trimmed. The wood must, of necessity, show no signs of splintering in any way, or foodstuffs might be contaminated. Sound branch wood, free from knots and of suitable size, is largely in demand for the work, and the diameter of the branches should preferably approximate to 3 ins.

The bowl of the spoon may be anything from 1½ ins. in diameter up­wards, but as a rule an oblong shape is preferred. Longitudinally, the bowl has a ratio of 2½ in length to 1½ laterally, and this ratio is more or less maintained with all sizes of spoons. The shaft seldom requires to exceed ½ in. in diameter, except where heavy cooking materials have to be stirred, whilst the handle is variable in size and shape.

The earlier practice of carving spoons by hand has largely been discontinued with the advent of improved mechanical methods, but improvised machines have been used by numerous amateur wood­workers.

GRINDING THE BOWL. Whereas other culinary wooden goods, such as potato ­mashers, rolling pins, etc., can be directly made by different turning operations, the spoon belongs to another category, as only the shaft and handle can be dealt with in this man­ner. In view of the strain put upon the wood during formation of the bowl, it is customary to prepare the latter first, and subsequently turn the shaft and handle.

The latest mechanism introduced for the purpose of forming the bowl directly consists of a pair of ribbed grinding wheels similar in shape to those used for oil drilling. The bottom wheel is bowl-shaped, with a hole at the centre to allow access to the fine sawdust which forms, whilst the upper wheel acts as the counterpart, and is semi­spherical (A and B, Fig. 1). Preven­tion of the ribs becoming clogged with fine sawdust is imperative to success of the operation, and these are cut sharply in spiral direction for both wheels, so that the motion causes the fine matter to descend continuously. If the rota­tion described a true circle, the bowl of the spoon formed would be circular, which thus limits its size; but in order to maintain the ratio of 2½ and 1½, the wheels are operated by a sliding cam, and in keeping with this motion both wheels are of greater dimensions than the ultimate shape of the bowl pro­duced.

Where selected branch wood is used, it is trimmed and cut to strips, but blocks of scrap wood are reduced by the band-saw to the desired shape directly. The strips are simply held in position between the wheels, and a lever causes the upper one to descend until the desired depth of bowl has been made. This, however, is not allowed to go so far that dissection is made from the parent section, as otherwise difficulties would be offered to the sub­sequent turning of the shaft and handle. In the way the fitting of the section at the head of the bowl to the tail-stock of the lathe is simplified, the centre being marked off in the usual manner.

The sliding cam which causes the wheels to operate to and fro whilst rotating is not really what might be termed an innovation, as the method was copied from the shuttle mechanism used in sewing machines. The action is a grinding one, and the nature of the motion prevents accumulation of sawdust between the ribs.

The wheels with the ribs are made of exceedingly hard chrome steel which are not readily blunted, and the art of making them depends upon the final tempering and quenching. The exposed faces of the ribs are as hard as the tools used for cutting steels, and hence are well able to withstand the effects of the continual abrasion from the soft wood. Each strip of wood is exposed to the foregoing treatment, and then passed over to the turner’s bench.

TURNING. The rough turning with the gouge is done easily and systematically so as not to exert any undue strain upon the weakened section (where a fraction of an inch connects the cut bowl to the parent wood), and more time is devoted to the final skinning than is customary for heavier objects such as mashers, and rolling pins, etc. Heavier gouges could probably do the work much more rapidly, but might run the risk of weakening the connecting section and further putting it out of alignment.

The turned shaft and handle are finished with glasspaper when the spoon is complete except for the parent wood attached to the bowl. This was for many years removed with chisels by hand, but recently a guillotine device has been adopted which removes the surplus wood very rapidly. In each case the edges of the bowl require to be trimmed and polished with glasspaper, when the spoons are ready for the market.

— The Woodworker, 1939

Part 1 is here.

MACHINIST: Are you not painting altogether too gloomy a picture? That the machine has largely taken the place of handwork is true so far as the trade is concerned. There are not many shops left where handwork is practicable at all (though I know of several good woodwork shops where it still holds its own). But it is not of the trade I am thinking. I have in mind that body of men which the WOODWORKER represents; men who do woodwork in their own homes, and who do it purely for the love of the thing. To them handwork is as alive to-day as ever it was.

Perhaps, however, I had better make my position quite clear. I have no desire to see the home workshop completely mechanised, but I believe that there are advantages in the use of certain machines without any corresponding drawbacks, providing you use them for their legitimate purpose. In no circumstances would I alter either the design or construction of a job merely to enable a machine to be used. But where a machine would do a job equally as well as handwork (or possibly better) I would not hesitate to use it.

After all, remember that every woodworker does this to an extent in any case – unless he buys a tree, cuts it up himself, and waits a few years for it to season, etc. If he is purist enough to buy his wood un­planed he has at least allowed the machine to cut it into boards for him. Now where is the difference in allow­ing the machine to saw up his boards and in cutting it to size on a small power saw? I for one never did care about the back-aching job of ripping out tim­ber, and I fail to see how my work has lost anything since I invested in a small circular saw. I can in a way admire the purist spirit that prompts a man to rip out, say, some 2-inch oak, but I do not see what he has gained. Ripping out is an uninteresting job at best, and the machine does it equally well – possibly better.

I say, therefore, that a small circu­lar saw is a justifiable and useful addi­tion to the workshop in that it does just as well in a quarter the time a job which is donkey work in any case, leav­ing a man free to do other work which requires more skill and which is in­finitely more interesting.

In 1938, The Woodworker magazine published a two page “conversation” between a handworker and machinist. It’s interesting and thoughtful. And so we are going to reproduce it here in short segments.

HANDWORKER: I think that one of the saddest aspects of the present age is the awful loss mankind has sustained in the almost entire disappearance of craftwork. Consider for a moment what this means. Take any craft at random – say that of the clockmaker. There are in London at the present time a few middle-aged and elderly men who could if required make a clock throughout by hand. Exactly how many I don’t know, but there cannot be many left who served an apprenticeship in a shop which was free of the machine, for even in the last century was heard the rumble of the distant drum.

When these men have passed on there will not be any man left with either the skill or the knowledge to carry out the countless skilled operations that go to the making of a clock. It will be as a great death. For centuries the trade is passed on, each man adding to it his measure of experience and handing it down to the young men who give as their contribution their zeal and enthusiasm.

Then one day the poisoned barb of the machine strikes it, and within thirty or forty years it lies stricken, a mere shadow of its former greatness.

Well, there is one of my arguments against the machine. It begins in a small way, apparently innocuous; then, one by one the various operations belonging to handwork go until the machine ousts handwork entirely. You cannot introduce one simple machine without running the risk of losing all. For where does one draw the line? Human nature, being what it is, seeks an easy way of doing a job, and, from using a machine to assist in heavy drudgery, it begins to alter the work so that it can be done by the machine, and there is the poison. The character of the work is sacrificed to the machine which makes it.