HOWTO Make a Viking spoon
In this great little Instructable, Morfmir shows you how to make a "Viking spoon," using only handmade, historically accurate viking hand-tools.
How to make a wooden spoon, the viking way (via Make)
You need:
Axe: any small hand axe will do fine. It just needs to be sharp. A good hand axe weighs around 500-600g
hammer: you need a heavy hammer. If it is to small it will not have enough force to split the wood.
wedge: A heavy iron wedge made for splitting firewood will work fine. Alternatively use a old axe and hammer it through the log. Don't use you good axe for that. You ruin the axe that way.
Knife: a small sharp knife will do.
Spoon knife: You need a spoonknife, in my book there are no alternatives. You will probably not find it in you local hardwarestore, but you can buy it online. The best are handforged made by S. Djärv but you can also go after the cheap ones made by Frost Sweden.
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Yes, but where is the Viking steampunk spoon? This is important.
They say he carved it himself... from a bigger spoon.
re #1. Viking steampunk. That could be a pretty sweet concept.
Vikings used spoons!?!
Now tell me how to make a viking spork.
I cry foul. Everyone knows Vikings drank soup by dipping their beards in it and wringing it out into their mouths.
That spoon is too big!
Yes, but what did they use to make the spoon knife?
Apparently they're not available in we local hardware store, and I doubt Vikings had Djärv.com
lets add "viking" to add spice to our wooden spoon.
coming soon "spartan egg cup".
Spartans! Prepare for soft boiled!
I am an viking and I approve of this message!
#7 Djärv is a computerized typo, not a real word. djärv is the word. But djärv.com is not even the right website. The correct site selling the tool in question is djarv.se . Check it, there's a page in english.
bonus: the swedish word "djärv" literally means "courageous". http://www.woxikon.se/svenska/dj%E4rv.php
Latente @ #2: Simpsons reference FTW!
#7: one would assume you would purchace it or trade for it from a blacksmith. Who's nick-name may or may not be Djärv...
The spoon knife is actually just a semi-specialty woodworking tool called an edge crook or a crooked knife. Just about any shop that carries woodworking tools will sell a few variations on this tool. They're used to carve out any concave depression by hand.
very nice work, but the "only handmade, historically accurate viking hand-tools" represent an extremely sophisticated and developed technology.
If there is a flint knapper in the house,I would appreciate hearing how to make a spoon the neolithic way(though even proper flint is hard to find).
If you want to scratch-build a fully-equipped Viking village with your bare hands, you can learn how at: http://www.northhousefolkschool.com
There is also a hand-carved-automata class: http://www.northhousefolkschool.com/classes/Woodcarve.htm
Takuan:
Since an actual wooden spoon surviving from the Neolithic period, complete with tool marks, is hard to believe to exist - I'm going to have to go with the following:
1: Make a flint scraper - A medium but thick "waste" flake from knapping a larger article would do for this;
2: Use it to shape an appropriately green slab of wood / branch;
3: Profit!
Most flint scrapers were used by placing the blade perpendicular - or nearly so - to the surface and then scraping.
Alternately, substitute spoons fashioned from bones (which is what I would do), or from seashells lashed to sticks (which I tried in Boy Scouts and is harder than one would think - sinew has a tendency to fall apart when moistened).
I know of neolithic spoon artifacts surviving to the present day, but those are fired clay or are soapstone.
thanks for that Bardfinn. I like shell spoons since you can have a new one every day, but there is something to be said for that newfangled "wood" tech too.
Nevermind the spoon - the hand tools are absolutely beautiful!
I see you've played knifey-spooney before.
I did an Outward Bound trip in my early teens, and immediately lost my utensils. I carved my own from a stick using a Swiss Army knife. My final product wasn't pretty at all, but it had two prongs on one side for eating pasta, and a sorta-spoon on the other side for eating whatever else.
> but there is something to be said for that newfangled "wood" tech too
Pah! That wood technology will never last; the future is copper and related alloys - it's all over the internet.
twigs?
http://www.designboom.com/contest/files/chopsticks.jpg
it is said the Diogenes had few possessions, among them a cup - which he threw away after seeing a man drink with cupped hands.
How to make a Viking spoon? Well, you would have to dress pretty warm to curl up with an Ice Maiden....
Öbligatöry Matrix Ref: There is nö spöön.
Öbligatöry Tick Reference: Spöön!!!
Boy, that Diogenes guy couldn't have been too bright if it took him seeing someone else do it to realize he could drink by cupping his hands. I'm pretty sure most 3 year olds get that one!
Tools with similar functionality to the spoon hooks can be found at most woodworking stores. I like Lee Valley:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=31073&cat=1,130,43332,43393&ap=1
...but even your neighborhood Rockler has something that will serve the purpose.
I've got some nice chunks of plumb from a neighbor's tree, but they've already dried out, so I think I'll reserve that fruitwood for the lathe, and keep my eye out for some green fruitwood for a spoon carving attempt...
I have indeed played knifie-sp00nie before.
Also:
There is no spoon.
and:
SPOON!
I'm an idiot for missing Jjasper's post just before mine. I blame lack of coffee.
Vikings are a myth, they never existed and were most likely invented by cartoon makers in the seventies.
@ Takuan - I suppose they didn't drink tea or soup in ancient Greece, or at least Diogenes didn't. Either that or you wouldn't want to have a philosophical disagreement turn physical with a man who can drink tea without a cup.
The Tick > The Matrix (disavowing sequels) > The Simpsons
This is ridiculous... everyone knows that Vikings plundered all of their flatware!
NORSEPUNK.
Bardfinn @16, if I were making a spoon, I might use a scraper to rough it out, but for the final hollowing of the bowl of the spoon I'd go for a rounded rock and some fine and finer sand.
Dried sinew's good for sewing moccasins, but not for putting handles on tools. For that, you want the fresh stuff -- it shrinks as it dries. I keep a stash of well-cleaned sinew strips in my freezer, in case I need one to repair a tool.
My current X-acto blade holders are partially split chopsticks with the blades inserted in the splits, and fresh sinew wrapped and tied around them. You do have to wait for them to dry, but they hold tight.
Is this spoon dishwasher-safe?
Actually made one of these a few years ago. (boredom + fully stocked woodshop = happy)
What I found is that rather then trying to use a spoon-knife, simply take a rounded chunk of metal, heat that with a torch, and use it to shape the bowl of the spoon. Has the added benefit of hardening the wood something fierce. Course, it might also burst into flames.....
See, I would set sail with a crew of burly men wearing fantastic headgear, make landfall at a seaside village that looked promising, slay the men, ravish the women, and take their spoons.
Simpler than all this mucking about with axes and spoon-knives and suchlike.
Jake: Yes, but only in Viking dishwashers.
Next week: a post from Mark on how to Make a Viking dishwasher.
hmmmm, your skull - it seems a pleasing curve.....
Yeah - what did Vikings need spoons for when they had knives and skulls?
It's like, How to Make a Ninja PDA, or Knit an Authentic Pirate Cutlass-Cosy.
has anyone here made iron?
#37 IWood,
LOL LOL
Teresa, I'm seeing a whole new side to you here; imagining you in a dry, autumn forest, hunched over a small, dead animal, your hands covered in blood up to the wrists, it's organs laid out on the ground around you, blood dripping down your chin as you gut it's ligaments and sinews with your teeth, getting ready to tool up and battle the heathens two villages over..
Or maybe I'm reading too much into it :)
That said, I think wolf-pelts-and-covered-in-blood could be a good look for you.. if you get the balance right. You don't want to look trashy, Paris Hilton practically ruined nuevo-Norse, last season.
I used up three white dwarfs making iron. Should last me a six or seven million years. Hard work.
Easier than assembling atoms, though.
http://orpheusandlyra.homestead.com/files/OperaWebRenata/Krushelnytska/Krushelnytska_Brunhilda.jpg
Oh, yeah! Time to ride...
A friend of mine was getting a divorce about the same time I was. We were sitting outside on the deck and testing out a bottle of Scotch. My wife had just moved the last of her stuff. ''She didn't take my Detroit Tiger logo glasses,'' I said, ''so there's at least that. And the wooden spoons.''
''I got those too,'' he said. ''They always leave the fucking wooden spoons.''
We drank to the sunset.
A friend of mine was getting a divorce about the same time I was. We were sitting outside on the deck and testing out a bottle of Scotch. My wife had just moved the last of her stuff. ''She didn't take my Detroit Tiger logo glasses,'' I said, ''so there's at least that. And the wooden spoons.''
''I got those too,'' he said. ''They always leave the fucking wooden spoons.''
We drank to the sunset.
@ #23 hahaha
that's what I read too. I want to know how to make a Viking spoon me!
Viking spooneral?