What kind of wood for kitchen utinsils?

heathicus · Post by **heathicus** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 2:02 pm

Last night my teenage son sent me a link to some wooden kitchen utensils on Amazon he wants to buy for his mom/my wife for Christmas. I have a hard time buying something I could make, plus this might be a good bandsaw exercise for him. And I think it would mean more to her if he made them.

I don't have a large selection of wood available to choose from. The only wood I have in sizes that could be cut into utensils are pine, cedar, ash, and maybe some maple. I know I don't want to use the first two. But what about ash? I would think the maple should be fine. Can someone confirm or correct that?

I just don't have the time (or a local source) to get a more appropriate wood.

Also... does anybody have any good bandsaw patterns for kitchen utensils?

wa2crk · Post by **wa2crk** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 4:30 pm

Stay with the same woods that you would use for cutting boards. Maple, walnut and cherry I would consider as the most useful. Ash may be Ok but I am not sure. Softer woods can absorb a lot of fluids and therefore can grow bacteria and generate other food born illnesses. Finish with a good grade of mineral oil or one of the food safe finishes. Hospital grade mineral oil can be obtained at most drug stores.
Bill V

reddog5362 · Post by **reddog5362** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 4:48 pm

Ash is a ring porous wood so I'd steer clear. It's more likely to absorb liquids and food particles.

heathicus · Post by **heathicus** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 4:59 pm

Ash is out, so that leaves me with Maple. That's a good choice? I don't have any walnut, or cherry, or bamboo, or olivewood, or anything else that might be better than maple. At this point it's maple or nothing. I just want to make sure maple would be ok.

reible · Post by **reible** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 6:15 pm

Just last spring I was looking in to this subject and according to a couple of notes I made I went with sycamore and purchase a chunk of it. I never got to the project this year but it is up for next year. It seems sycamore has been an old traditional wood for those sorts of things.

Osage Orange (hedge row trees is how they are known locally) was also recommended. That would have been my second choice.

Third choice was birch. At that point I stopped researching so I never got into other woods. From the choices you have given I think I'd lean towards the maple, not because of any specific reason other then I like to work with maple.

My plan was to do a simple design based on some of the wooden utensils we have. I was going to get a general shape with the bandsaw in one dimension, minimal shape in another face leaving an area where I could use my jawed center to turn the handle round. I was planning on doing the rest by power sanding and hand tools. I seen this done with a spring pole lathe so I figure a shopsmith should have no issues with this.

Take some pictures to share with us and write up any tips you come up with.

Ed

heathicus · Post by **heathicus** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 6:32 pm

This is the set my son sent me the link to: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009BLGMLA/ref ... Rsb187XHJE

I took the second image, sized it so they looked about the right size, and printed it across several sheets of paper and I'll use that for a template on one plane. I'll just have to see what feels and looks right for the other plane.

Hopefully we can pull this off!

davebodner · Post by **davebodner** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 6:46 pm

Maple should be an excellent choice, especially compared with the others you'd mentioned. As someone else mentioned, ash--like oak--is open-pored. It'll absorb stuff you'd rather it not absorb.

A soft maple would be easier to work than a rock maple but still have the advantage of being closed-pored.

All that being said, I'm still using an oak spoon I made a several years ago. It's poorly made. But it's strong, and it has a flat, scraper-like leading edge.

WmZiggy · Post by **WmZiggy** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 1:05 pm

Hickory is a possible choice.

heathicus · Post by **heathicus** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 1:09 pm

WmZiggy wrote:Hickory is a possible choice.

I don't have hickory.

mrhart · Post by **mrhart** » Thu Dec 19, 2013 8:28 am

Sir I have posted pics the last two years and have done some spoon spatula sets. Walnut is cool but I have used maple, zebra wood is awesome, but apple wood would be my wifes favorite.
They were popular enough I've had to make a ton of them and have patterns at this point.
A visual would give you some ideas.

http://www.shopsmith.net/forums/showthread.htm?p=134033#post134033

#58 #71
everyone was very creative last year