Although I am grateful, my present abode is in an HOA setting and as usual with such situations, neighbors are packed tightly together. There are two primary methods to manifest most of the items I make, 1) the quiet way, which takes many times longer and doesn’t use power tools, and 2) the noisy way, which still takes a lot of time, but is the only I’m willing to use right now. It is method 2 which is the dangerous one and can lead to all sorts undesirable things, such as public bastinado by otherwise peaceful folks who just can’t tolerate the endless screech of rotary tools and belt grinders, not to mention having to look at some deranged mammal crawling in the weeds, spewing plumes of dust while wrangling chunks of exotic hardwood.
If I werze a millionairian, or perhaps necessarily, a bazillionaire if real estate prices are considered, I’d have me some land, particularly in Myakka Florida, which is my favorite place on the planet and what I call home, regardless of my location or persistence of reality.
Alas, I’m an urban rat and poor at that, thus make my wares accordingly.
Such constraints can have the effect of inducing hastiness and compromises in one’s work. Recently this has resulted in various mistakes, half-baked ideas and reluctance to endeavor more intricate projects. The conscientious nag of sincerely not wanting to bother people makes method 2 difficult enough without invoking rule enforcement and corporal punishment .
Not quite as intended and lacking some things I did intend, it’s yet more kitchen paraphernalia I present here, in the form of a cocobolo spoon and rice paddle made from an unknown wood that I wish I could identify but can’t. I think it is a very unusual piece of cocobolo. Update: Probably bocote.
Above is a cut of the unknown (probably bocote) wood, showing the rough side. On first glance, it isn’t very appealing and strongly resembles rough cocobolo. However, the image below is the other side of the same piece, showing the freshly cut side:
I’d been wanting to make a rice paddle for some time and made a pair of chopsticks from this piece some time ago, so thought I’d make a matching set of rice-themed items. That ain’t happened yet, but I did make a rice paddle, as seen blow:
The rice paddle and cocobolo spoon (see below) were all I could squeeze from this Saturday. I’m a bit more satisfied with the paddle than the spoon.
The cocobolo spoon turned out ok, but using an aggressive hand rasp (method 1) for most of the shaping left the handle slightly thinner than intended, and resulted in slightly above standard asymmetry. I also avoided a more elaborate handle end and finished it too quickly. But it’s still a nice spoon, of a very nice wood.