First Stab at Carving Utensils

With all of the typhoons and local storms we've been having this season, there has been a corresponding bumper crop of driftwood on the beach. You can only collect so much before you have to do something with it, so, after finding a pretty cool knife in the hardware store that boys across Japan used to keep their pencils sharpened with, I decided to start hacking away at a few of the pieces I gathered.

Here are the admittedly amateurish results.

Though I am happy with the grain that's been exposed in these, the shapes are a little wonky yet. Worse still, I've used a really fragrant piece of wood to carve the butter knife — a no-no perhaps for something to be used with food.

I did find this excellent book in our local bookstore to help me going forward. It's called "Hand-made Wooden Cutlery"(手ずくりする木のカトラリ) by Nishikawa Takaaki.

Not only does it show some really fine pieces including a cherry wood butter case, but it has step-by-step instructions for creating some of the more difficult pieces, like boxes and bowls.

All right, it's out. I'm in love with wood. At least I'm in the perfect place to carry on the affair. We'll see if it's lasting. I think it should be.

I just need to find me some walnut or gingko.

I do know where one of those is....