Spoons boiling in a pot of water? Yes, this is tempering. The spoons and spatulas shown here are this year’s batch of Christmas and holiday presents for friends needing a new piece of treen – an old word for woodenware. The rough carving, shaping, and sanding have been done; the bowls carved first of course. Now comes the tempering to raise the grain so a final sanding and rubbing can finish the treen. The last step will be rubbing with a paste made from beeswax and mineral oil. The wood is from the cherry that my firewood provider told me was in the seven chords I bought this year. He casually informed me that: “…there’s a bit of cherry in there”. A bit turned out to be about twenty percent of a chord. Of course I couldn’t burn it. So, I have cherry blanks for spoons, bowls, spatulas, wooden forks, and other assorted treen for a number of years. I may even have to sell some.
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Looks like you have huge collection of wooden cooking utensils .
Beautiful Pic 🙂
I carve and sell on commission nowadays. So, I try to keep the amount of treen sitting around in control – it clutters the shop. But, a lot of native cherry came in with my firewood in the fall so it looks like I’ll have to turn it into spoons and spatulas…sigh.