Spoon Carvin' on the XXL

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This is a prototype spoon I made this weekend out of Southern Yellow Pine. The final product will probably be in Mahogany. It was a simple 2-sided project but I figured some folks might like to learn from it. I know I learn a ton from others’ projects.

I’m currently making this awesome coffee chest for my wife. When researching the parts and pieces in it, I learned that the original maker wanted to eliminate all plastic from the kit to give it an antique feel. He bought the measuring spoon head, turned the handles and purchased the stir stick from Sur La Table. I found the stir stick online but it was $5 plus $8 shipping. Well, screw that, I’m a woodworker with cool toys. I’ll make one.

I decided to combine the spoon and stir stick into one piece. I modeled it in Fusion 360 and was able to calculate the exact volume of the scoop to match the plastic scoop that came with the brewer. Then I used VCarve Pro for my 2-sided CAM.

First I did a roughing toolpath:

1/4" 3-flute endmill (Carbide3d #201)

100 ipm

18K rpm (2 on the Dewalt trim router)

1/8’" doc

45% stepover

Then the finishing toolpath:

1/16" ballnose (Amana #46282)

100 ipm

27K rpm (6 on the Dewalt)

6% stepover

I used asymmetric dowels holes to get a perfect flip about the X axis. First you cut 3 randomly placed holes in the top of the work piece, then do the roughing and finishing pass. With the block removed, you cut a mirror image of the dowel holes into the spoilboard. When flipped over, there’s only one orientation in which the holes will align. It works really well in the several 2-sided jobs I’ve done.

Hope this helps anyone wanting to do something similar!

8 Likes
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Nice projects, I will have to keep this method in mind when I decide to create a two sided 3D carve.

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Why the asymmetric dowel cut outs rather than 1 positioned above and below the spoon to flip that way? It looks like in one of your pictures you do that because I don’t see the other dowel holes.

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The holes in the center top and bottom are for the screws holding the work piece to the spoilboard. I used to put dowel holes centered symmetrically on each side but screwed up a big project by accidentally flipping the work piece in both the X and Y axis. The holes still aligned so I didn’t notice until the second side of the job was almost done. Now I like the added fail safe of the 3 asymmetric holes only being able to line up one way.

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That totally makes sense. I like it and will give it a try next time I do a 2 sided part.