The spoon story

The small spoons that I’m just finishing for the Unit Twelve Spoons exhibition have come a long way from this layered iron billet at the Bushfire Forge.

I forged the layers of the billet together and out into a rod.

and twisted it hot.

I hammered the rod down and shaped the end.

I then ground the spoons to make them the shape I wanted and to start revealing the pattern. I refined the shape of the spoons, sanded and polished them.

Last week I heat treated the spoons in my enameling kiln – hardening and tempering them.

Then more grinding, sanding and polishing to remove the oxides.

Then the magic moment in the fondue pot on the camping stove – using ferric chloride to reveal the pattern layers.

More re-used kitchen items – the tea treatment to clean the remaining oxide. A few other finishing processes and they’ll be ready to send off to Unit Twelve in Stafford.

 

These are some that I made earlier.

If you are nearer the Borders there are some of these spoons at the White Fox Gallery, and if you are in Fife there will be some at ENOS Open studios this October.

 

iron pour

I found my neighbour’s iron guttering on the rocks (the photo shows where it used to be)

and I took it to Scottish Sculpture Workshops. Where we melted it, along with other scrap iron (which Ross nobly ‘cracked’ while I did the sand bed for the furnace)

The molten iron was poured into a two-part sand mould of a small vessel form (and some other moulds)

This is the iron piece with runner and riser, tomorrow I’ll cut the extraneous bits off, but I rather like the patterns it makes in the sun.