My best knife skill is making bowls, spoons, and cups. I always use my 9 to flatten the bottom of the bowls. When carving, I use multiple knife grips and cuts. For example, the chest-lever grip, backhand, where the edge faces toward you but will never cut you because the knife goes into the void between your thumb and the rest of your hand, and the scissor grip. I also use a curved spoon knife where I pull the knife across the grain.
I also have used the 9 to rough out the spoons. It works very well, almost as well as an axe, however, you could also use it for finer finishing cuts.
Here are a few finished carvings. They are all done by hand with only knives and axes.
You can see the flat bottom here.
Here you can see where I used the backhand grip to make the ridge in the back of the spoon.
Here you can see a few of the cuts made by the curved spoon knife.
I use my 9 as a drawknife to flatten the bottom of these bowls.
I would really appreciate it if you guys would take the time to look at my Flickr page where I have many more carvings. I am also continually updating it so you may bookmark it if you like what you see.
I also have some more Becker pics there too.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/57443333@N04/
Overall, I think that knowing how to carve a spoon, bowl, or cup is a very useful skill to have. It would be very useful if you had to survive in the woods because having a way to eat is always nice.
Thanks for the contest Moose! I'd love to get a small Becker sometime as I don't have one yet.
