By Joshua Farnsworth
In the above video, wooden bowl and spoon maker Mike Cundall talks about which hand tools are needed for green woodworking generally, and also for bowl carving and spoon carving. He also shares some of his beautifully carved wooden spoons and bowls.
Mike is one of our newest instructors at the Wood and Shop Traditional Woodworking School, and he’ll be teaching two classes this year:
- “Bowl Carving & Spoon Carving with Mike Cundall” (2 Days)
- “Carving Wooden Spoons with Mike Cundall ” (1 Day)
Mike Cundall builds furniture, and carves his lovely wooden bowls & spoons out of his home workshop in North Carolina. He is also a professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina A&T.
In addition to teaching bowl and spoon carving at our school, he teaches the same subject at the John C. Campbell Folk School. He loves hanging out with his wife and three sons, and practicing the Japanese martial art of Aikido. He’s a zen kind of guy, all around!
Below is a short list of hand tools that Mike specifically uses for wooden bowl carving and spoon carving. If you want a full list of tools used for green woodworking in general, please visit our updated Green Woodworking Tool Buyer’s Guide, here. It shares advice on what each tool is used for, what features to look for, and where to buy the tools. And we share some of Mike’s valued and detailed advice on tools used for bowl and spoon carving. But this is a blog post, so we’ll keep it short here.
Tools for Bowl Carving
- Short bowl carving adze (also called a “Gutter Adze”)
- Hook knife
- Carving knife (like a Slöjd Knife)
- Carving axe/hatchet
- Carving gouge (#7 sweep long bent gouge…between 25mm and 35mm)
- Spoke shave
Tools for Spoon Carving
- Hook knife
- Carving knife (like a Slöjd Knife)
- Carving axe/hatchet
We hope you can come join Mike for one of his classes, and please comment below to let Mike know what you think of his work!
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