Anaguma No Iori

Sister’s Salad Spoons

Finished olivewood salad spoon and fork showing the grain of the wood
Finished olivewood salad spoon and fork showing the grain of the wood
Finished olivewood salad spoon and fork.

When we were in France this summer, my sister and I visited several lovely craft stores in Conques. One of them had absolutely stunning olivewood salad servers.

The secret to making beautiful wooden objects is to use beautiful wood and get out of the way.

Olivewood salad spoon and fork blanks after being outlined and cut on the bandsaw
Quartered, outlined, and bandsawn.

I bought a smallish piece of olivewood on eBay, quartered it, and outlined the pieces on the bandsaw. Then I screwed my courage to the sticking point and mounted my “quick trip to the emergency room” angle-grinder attachment, which carves wood like a methamphetamine-addled beaver.

Carbide wood-carving disc mounted on an angle grinder
The “quick trip to the emergency room” attachment.

It hollowed each spoon in about four seconds.

Olivewood spoon bowl freshly hollowed with coarse angle-grinder carving marks
Approximately four seconds later.

Then I sanded for a while and oiled them with Blotung™.

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