Turning a Bean Spoon by Roger Austin

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Turning A Bean Spoon

Turning a Bean Spoon by Roger Austin. One day I was in that "big pot of pinto beans" mood. You know the feeling. It is the back to basics, frontier like mood that is necessary in this age of virtual reality. I deal with computers and software all week, and sometimes on weekends, I need the down and dirty, rustic smell that a pot of beans will bring to my abode. Well, one day I was in this mood and started a pot of beans with a picked over ham bone. After soaking and cooking, I took out my store bought spoon and tried to stir up the beans. Well, dag-nab-it, the store bought spoon just didn’t do the job! First, I couldn’t grab the handle after holding my lathe tools all day. The handle is just too small. Second, I want a spoon that can do some damage in that pot, not one that just plays around with the beans. Thus, an idea of the bean spoon came to my head. First, I wanted a handle I could grip. It needed to fit just like my lathe tools did. Second, I wanted to stir without worrying if I was going to fish out the broken off business end of the spoon from the pot. Well, you all know what that means: I needed to design me a spoon!


What were my design parameters?

Armed with the design features, I ran to the lathe. I had several maple and poplar boards of unknown dryness about 2x3 inches and 36 inches long. I cut a 12" length and chucked it between centers. ( I use a cup dead center in the headstock and a cup live center in the tailstock.)


Next, armed with a very sharp skew chisel, I dove into the wood with abandon. I cut the head of the spoon to rough shape. The pommel cut between the handle and the head was made and the handle area was brought to a cylinder. I next defined the head to handle placement by cutting a vee with the skew at the pommel. I made the pommel cut down to about 3/4" diameter.

I quickly wasted away the excess wood at the handle with the skew using a peeling cut . This is where the skew is used like a very wide parting tool to get rid of a lot of wood fast. (I made extra sure that the piece was solid between the centers before the cut.)

The next steps were the refining of the handle to a shape that was pleasing to both my hand and eye. I like to make a shape on the end of tool handles to define one handle from another. I did this with spoon also (You should see my kitchen!)


I sanded the handle to my satisfaction, remembering that it will be in boiling water so finish wasn’t super important. The final shape of my spoon handle went from about 3/16" at the bowl to about 5/8" at the maximum diameter, but if you make one, make it to your hand size (or the hand size of the person you are making it for. I found this out when a certain lady with very tiny hands thought the handle was too large.)

The final turning part of the exercise was making a final rough shape for the bowl of the spoon. This wasn’t really important since I was hand carving later; however, I did want to minimize the hand carving.


After I got an approximate size for the bowl, I defined the end of the handle with the skew and cut the handle off with the point of the skew. I used hand carving gouges and sanding to get a nice shaped bowl on the spoon. I found it easiest to define the outside bottom of the bowl before scooping out the inside of the bowl. A stationary belt sander helped here, but wasn’t critical. Next, I clamped the spoon handle in a wood vise and carved the bowl in the spoon. I personally didn’t care if it was perfectly smooth, I liked the rough carved texture of the bowls. I later found that I could carve the bowl completely by sitting down and holding the spoon on my thigh. (I did wear very thick pants!)


I finished with Behlen’s® Salad bowl finish, but any food-safe oil finish would do, or no finish at all (i.e., bean juice). My four sisters have all looked at the spoons and wondered when theirs will be coming. My folks now have a couple and really like them. My little nieces now have spoons to help their mother cook and I used a burning tool to write their name on the handle. I have noticed that the texture of the spoons is the first thing that people like. Since my first attempt at spoons, I have tried a number of items, such as rolling pins, spatulas, etc. but spoons are definitely my favorite kitchen form.


So the next time that you feel that rustic, back to nature, feeling and want that wonderful aroma of pinto beans on the stove, go out and turn yourself a bean spoon. You’ll be glad you did!

This article was originally published in the Newletter of the Triangle Woodturners of North Carolina, May 1995. This may not be reproduced without the permission of the author.