How To… Carve a Kuksa

I came across a fallen hornbeam tree one day while teaching my Sea Cadets some map reading. Attached to it was a burl that produced this beautifully swirled kuksa cup.

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My kuksa

Before I could drink out of my new kuksa I had to sort the small matter of carving it. As I explained in my previous How To… on Carving a Small Noggin cup the name kuksa (also known as kåsa in Sweden) is probably not the correct term for the cup as it was not carved in a Scandinavian country by the Sami peoples. Also it was not carved out of a birch burl but I like the word kuksa and it was carved out of a hornbeam burl at least.

After cutting the burl section from the fallen tree I left it to season for 3 years in a cold but dry area (my garage).

I wanted to create a kuksa that had the swirl of the burl wood and the clean lines of the heart wood. I started trying to saw down the length of the heartwood but that proved too difficult for my hand saw.

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Hornbeam Burl

In the end I inserted two of my log splitting wedges into the saw cut and hammered down on them with a wooden mallet.

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Splitting out

Thankfully they split cleanly leaving me a fairly smooth surface to start axing out the shape of the kuksa.

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Dark wood of the burl

The heartwood was well seasoned and required quite a bit of axe work to get it down to the level I wanted.

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Axing out the blank

I stopped axing out the top of the kuksa when I started to reach the burl wood but kept the heartwood for the handle. I was inspired by Jon Mac with his kuksa handle in the style of an otter’s tail and felt that the heartwood would prove a stronger option to the burl wood.

I drew out my general shape and used my saw again to cut off the excess on the sides. All the excess burl was carved later into either a quaich or a bowl.

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Making most of the burl

The burl was of a very good depth and even though there were some deep fissures I knew for once I would get a decent sized cup out of it.

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Ready to carve the bowl

I did not take any pictures of me carving the bowl or shaping the kuksa as I was too busy carving and there was no one around to photograph for me.

I looked in my archive though and came across these pictures of the master craftsman John Arthur from the Woodlife Makers Guild at the 2011 Wilderness Gathering demonstrating how to quickly blank out a kuksa.

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John Arthur – Master Wood Worker

After chopping out the basic shape, John used a saw to put some stop cuts in. Stop cuts allow you to remove wood from specific areas without any split running off into wood you want to keep (in this case the area that will become the bowl).

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Stop cuts and blanking out the cup

Once John had the basic shape he used his crook knife to carve out the bowl. He kept the knife in his right hand and continually turned the kuksa to carve out the bowl.

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Carving the bowl

Finally he used a small knife to shape the outside of the kuksa. He used a number of cutting styles cutting towards himself and away from himself but he was always in full control of the knife and soon had the basic shape of the kuksa made.

As this was green wood he then explained he would let it dry slowly over a number of weeks before finishing it off.

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Deft knife work

Here are some of John’s finished kuksas on display at the Gathering. With this level of detail you can see why he is a master craftsman.

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John’s creations

Back to my kuksa – the burl wood of the bowl came out very easily with a chisel and my crook knife.

I put lots of stop cuts into the sides of the blank so as to help get rid of the excess here in a controlled way (you can see all the pencil marks where I was to put them). I really took my time here to get rid of the excess wood and not damage the bowl.

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Stop cuts

The whole process of removing the burl wood took quite a while as the outer bark was very hard and the burl wood underneath the bark because of its curving nature was very soft in places and very hard in others.

When I had formed it into the shape you see in the top picture (below) I started using different grades of sandpaper, working up from very rough to very fine, until it reached the smoothness you see in the bottom picture.

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Carving the Kuksa shape

The inside of the bowl was very stable, smooth and did not contain any holes.

The underside was a different matter with small holes in a number of places.

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Smooth bowl but imperfect base

In the up close pictures below you can see that they were fairly deep. I felt I needed to fill these holes to prevent any leakages (never a good thing when you are desperate for a brew).

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Holes – big and small

To fill the holes I used a mixture of wood glue and sawdust from the sanding as a kind of filler. I rubbed the mixture all over the underside of the bowl, allowed it to dry, sanded it and repeated the process again. This all took a couple of days to allow for the drying process.

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Wood glue and shavings on the base

There was still some roughness left over even after the sanding but I felt that went with the character of the kuksa.

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Drying and sanding

To seal the cup I melted beeswax and poured it over the cup. I then re-melted the beeswax with a hairdryer so that as much of it as possible would soak into the burl wood to fill all the pores. I repeated this a number of times, covering the whole cup until no more beeswax would soak into the wood.

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Beeswax filler

The beeswax did what the sanding alone never could; it smoothed out the wood and gave it a lovely shine as well. The swirls of the burl wood really stood out after this process.

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Beautiful swirls on the sides

I particularly liked the contrast of the burl wood of the bowl with the heartwood of the handle. This is what I was hoping for and was very pleased with the outcome.

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Contrasts – heart wood and burl wood

Next up was to test out the waterproofness of the cup. To begin with I poured cold water into the cup and let it stand for an hour. Thankfully there were no leaks.

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Waterproofing test – cold water

Then it was time to add hot water. I started with warm water and in stages moved up until I was pouring just-boiled water into the kuksa. I was fairly happy that there would be no leakages now.

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Waterproof test – hot water

Next up was to see how a brew tasted with all that beeswax in the wood. I poured myself a coffee and could taste nothing of the beeswax. I think the boiling water helped with removing any excess beeswax.

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Taste test 1 – Coffee

A final test was at my friend Fraser’s place (of Coastal Survival) when he made me a beautiful cup of mint and blackberry tea.

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Taste test 2 – Herbal tea

I used more of the burl to make a bowl to go with the cup and it too turned out quite beautifully (in my opinion at least!).

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The set and another brew

Cheers

George

How To… Carve a Small Noggin Cup

This is a How To… of a small wooden cup called a noggin (also known as noigin in Irish and noigean in Gaelic) I made as a Christmas stocking filler for my wife Alison.

Alison had always wanted a one carved for her so I thought it was time to get on with it. These cups were traditionally made out of burls (I will cover this in more detail in my next How To…) however I did not have one available at the time and used silver birch wood instead.

Noggin carving is a skill that has been practiced for millennia but due to modern industrial practices it is now something generally limited to green woodworkers, bowl turners and bushcrafters. These are a few of my carvings, all utilitarian and nothing fancy. The cup at the bottom is the one I made for this How To…

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Carvings

Wood selection and splitting

For this noggin I selected a green piece of silver birch that had no crack lines starting on either end. The log had a few knots in it but looked quite easy to carve.

I split the log on a stump with my axe and drew out the basic shape of the noggin with a pencil. My intention was to carve a shallow flat-bottomed noggin with steep sides as the log was not that big.

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Beginnings – splitting the log and drawing

Tools & the bowl

As the sides were to be steep I opted to use a curved wood chisel and a mawl. I carved out the bowl first for various reasons:

    • To locate any cracks deep in the bowl area quickly
    • Working with the whole piece makes it more stable
    • There is less chance of the side of the bowl cracking
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Mawl and curved wood chisel for the bowl

Carving the bowl

To begin with I worked my way around the edge of the bowl taking out small chippings. I tapped the chisel with the mawl quite gently at this stage. The work piece was placed on my lap with 3 thick layers protecting my legs – two jackets and a small day sack.

I positioned the log so that the chisel was always pointing away from me. A work bench with a vice would have been safer but not available at the time (we were working in the winter in a small roundhouse).

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Fine work to begin with on the bowl

Going Deeper

Once the initial edge area was carved out I was able to use more force with the chisel. By this time I did not need to use the mawl but cut into the wood by just pressing down with force on the chisel. This seemed to work quicker than using the mawl all the time.

Working my way around the bowl I was able to take out a lot of wood rapidly until I had the basic shape roughed out.

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Chunking out the bowl

Axing out the basic shape

Once the bowl was created I axed out the basic shape of the noggin. I used the saw to make ‘stop cuts’ first though so that when I was using the axe I did not cut out areas of wood that formed part of the cup.

I did this work on a stump placed on the floor. The work piece was always well in front of me so that the follow through from any slippage (from the axe) went to the side of me.

Here you can see the two stop cuts created by the saw coming in at either side of the work piece. I then used the axe to cut out the areas of wood I did not require.

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Stop cuts and axe work

Carving with the Sloyd knife

After using the axe to blank out the basic shape of the noggin I then switched to using my Mora Sloyd knife. This small knife is ideal for more detailed, controlled carving.

I was able to carve in a very controlled and safe fashion with my thumbs pressing on the back of the blade. Even though the cuts were always small it did not take long for me to fine tune the shape as the blade itself was very sharp and the wood was green.

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Knife work

The crook knife

When I had the outside of the noggin ready for sanding I decided to use the crook knife on the inside of the bowl.

This was to take out as many of the small ridges produced by the chisel as possible and also to try and flatten out the bottom of the bowl some more. The crook knife enabled me to smooth out a lot of the ridges that the Sloyd could not reach.

After finishing with the bowl I left the noggin in a paper bag to dry slowly over a two-week period as it is easier to sand down dry wood.

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Finishing the bowl with the crook knife

Sanding the Noggin

I used a variety of different sandpapers on the noggin including:

  • Top left – 80 grit
  • Top right – 150 grit
  • Bottom left – 320 grit
  • Bottom right – 1200 grit
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The sandpapers used

I started with the coarsest, 80 grit, ensuring I covered the whole noggin and that all the edges were rounded off. The bottom of the noggin did take a considerable period of time to roughly sand (I should probably have done more knife work) but I wanted to create a small flat area so that it would be stable when set down with liquid in it.

I did not sand the whole of the noggin smooth as I wanted to leave some of the tool marks showing but I did give the rim of the cup an extra bit of sanding as I wanted that bit particularly smooth.

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Sanding

 

I really focused on making the rim smooth as I wanted that smoothness to contrast with the tool marks on the lower area.

Once I had finished with the 80 grit I worked my way up through the other sandpaper slowly smoothing the noggin down until I reached the finest, 1200 grit.

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Smoothing the rim

Boning the noggin

After sanding I oiled the noggin lightly (I used vegetable oil as that was all that was available) then used the back of a spoon to really smooth the surface. This is known as boning and as well as smoothing the surface it helps to seal the oil into the wood (a small rounded pebble works just as well).

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Boning

This whole process took a couple of hours and I added more oil as I went along. I find boning quite therapuetic, and it leaves a beautifully smooth satiny finish.

Lastly I carved a hole in the handle, fixed a leather loop and oiled the noggin once again.

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Before and after oiling

Lovely carvings for lovely ladies (although sadly Alison couldn’t christen hers with a dram of whisky on Christmas Day: she was pregnant with our son Finlay, who was born just a couple of weeks later!).

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Finished stocking fillers

Cheers

George

Carving Contrasts

I like to think I can carve the odd decent spoon, bowl or cup from time to time but I know my skill level is only fair to middling as I do not spend enough time practising the art, but I do have a number of good friends who are absolute expert carvers and from whom I can get inspiration.

Mark Beer is one of them. He is an excellent all-round woodsman and carver and on a recent visit to his place I was quite taken aback by his latest creations. As usual I insisted on taking loads of pictures of his work and when he explained the fluorescent properties of Robinia (False Accacia) wood the photographer in me became quite excited.

The cup on the left is carved from Robinia and the other two are from mulberry.

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Robinia and mulberry make for beautiful carvings

The cups were carved from burls found on the trees so you can see lots of swirls in the wood. The robinia under normal light is a light cream colour that contrasts well with the darker parts caused by the haphazard growth of the burl.

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Robinia under natural light

Under an ultraviolet light (I made an impromptu studio in his closet) the wood is transformed into a magical range of colours. I was as usual only taking pictures with my phone but I think you can really see the green, yellow and purple coming through.

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Robinia under infrared light

And up very close – quite psychedelic really.

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Robinia up close

The smallest of the cups was made from Mulberry. I find carving small cups quite difficult as you need to carve deep but have so much less wood to hold while carving. This small cup is simple in its design but because of the growth of the burl is rather beautiful with shades of light and dark.

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Mini Mulberry

The third cup also made out of mulberry has a larger bowl with a pointed tip. The inside of the bowl was finished using his knife only with very fine cuts to make it smooth but the outside still had the tool marks clearly showing. These tool marks blended in well with the swirls of the burl.

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All angles and curves

In terms of function these cups perform the exact same job but in terms of form each is a unique piece of beautiful art.

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Contrasts

Mark had also purchased pipestone (catlinite) to make a Traditional Ceremonial Elbow Pipe and carved and shaped the bowl himself. The pipestone is only allowed to be quarried by members of recognised Native American Tribes. The wood Mark used for the stem was cherry.

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A pipestone elbow pipe with a carved cherry stem

The man himself.

Mark the Carver
Mark the Carver

Thanks for letting me look at your latest work Mark, and allowing me to photograph these beautiful pieces.

Cheers

George

Bushcraft Days Carvings – 2013

Carving is my therapy

I do love to sit by a campfire and do a spot of carving. To me it is a very therapeutic pastime but often I don’t get much chance to do it when I’m out running a course. Thankfully though this year I managed to squeeze in a spot of carving on a few trips.

Ash Platter

Early this year I had been helping out at my friends Phil and Philippa’s farm. We were cutting up an old ash tree that had been blown over in the winter gales. I spotted a piece of wood that had been split open down its length and so was fairly easy to carve into a thin platter.

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Ash platter from a wind blown tree

Pointed Hazel Spoon

This spoon was made when I realised I had come away with no eating utensils for the weekend – but thankfully I had remembered my knife 🙂

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Pointed Hazel spoon

Birch Bowls

The large dark bowl was from a piece of birch my friend Stephen found in a hedge at this year’s Wilderness Gathering. The log was partially burnt out and then dumped when no longer required. It was very spalted and rotten in places. I carved out the charcoal with a flint adze and scooped as much of the wood from the bowl as I could with a crook knife.
I left this bowl to dry very slowly over four months. I also painted the ends with gloss paint to try and stop any cracks from happening. So far it seems to be crack free.
The smaller bowl was a demonstration piece I carved at the Kent County Show with Phil Brown of Badger Bushcraft. Again the wood is birch and this one is destined to be a Christmas present.

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Burnt Birch bowl & a Scooped Birch bowl

Cherry Spoon

I was given a piece of cherry wood by my friend Charlie Brookes earlier this year. On holiday in the summer in Cornwall I decided to pass an evening around the fire carving a spoon for my friend Louise.

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Cherry Spoon – side view

The wood was very dry but when it was finally sanded, oiled and boned it developed a small crack on the bowl. I was gutted but Louise loved it 🙂

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Cherry spoon – underside

Quaich

A few years ago I came across a wind blown hornbeam with the most fantastic burl growth on it. The thing filled my rucksack after I had removed it from the tree (I had to give all my kit to the cadets I was with in order to carry the burl myself).
I made a number of items from it this year. This one is a Quaich which to any non-Scottish people I would describe as a communal drinking cup – in particular whisky.

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Hornbeam Burl Quaich

Knobbly Spoon

I made this spoon in the summer for my friend Jennifer while I was on the Coastal Survival Hunter Gatherer course. I just like the knobbly bit and thought it would make for a good handle.

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Knobbly spoon (cannot remember the wood type)

The underside of the handle really showed up the gnarled wood.

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Knobbly spoon – underside

Burl Bowl

Another from the burl. This time I made up a large dinner bowl. It is very rough looking as you have to go with what the wood is saying to you. I gave this bowl away to the parents of a very dear friend of mine who passed away this year as he was a fellow carver.

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Hornbeam Burl bowl

Spatula

Another implement for my friend Louise. A simple spatula but a pleasure to carve. We had a great holiday this year in Cornwall and camped in the front garden of a Georgian house. The house has been converted to a Youth Hostel and was managed by Louise.

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Ash spatula

Spalted Spoon

I was sawing up some wood for a campfire this summer and picked up this piece. It had been left in an old fire that had not been cleaned up. The spalting looked too good for the fire so it provided a good hour’s carving for me.

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Spaltef Hazel spoon

My Noggin

My last piece from the burl was this cup. In Scandinavia a popular name for this type of cup is a Kuksa or Kasa. I prefer the Old English name of Noggin myself.

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My new Noggin

I am looking forward to the New Year and seeing what different woods I find to carve around the campfire.

Cheers

George