Forged spoon and fork.

[jacbow2]

So I'm looking into making some fork and spoon sets for camping and 18th century reeancting. Maybe a few for now days too. But I can't find any good youtube videos on it. Any recomandations?

[tdaleh]

Fire up the forge  grab a bar of steel and experiment.  You will be surprised  at what you can figure out by doing.

[ThomasPowers]

A little more info and what would be "good" for you would help:  

So what kind of forge will you be using as videos that use the same sort of equipment as you plan to would probably be better than ones that use very different setups.

Also what will you be forging them from?  Real wrought iron or mild steel or A-36?  (Real Wrought iron was the material used at that time as mild steel was "invented" in the 1850's with the Bessemer/Kelly process and even then took quite a while to "catch on" .  The 1889,1890,1891 smithing book "Practical Blacksmithing", Richardson, has discussions on how to work with the "new" material.)   Most videos will probably be using A-36 or mild steel----mild steel would be easier to work with. A-36 cheaper and easier to find.

To really twist the path you can forge them out of stainless or even titanium---my regular camping eating set is forged from CP1 Titanium---never rust and easy to clean and light to carry!

[Alan Evans]

I heard a nice story...Two experienced old explorers/travellers happened to meet by chance around a camp fire in the Hindu Kush. Could of been Wilfred Thesiger and Eric Newby...They got to discussing necessary items for exploration/survival and came to the conclusion that a "spoon with a sharpened edge" was the only essential thing required.

I would make them from stainless so that you do not taint the flavour of anything you put in your mouth, you can leave them straight from the hammer so they will be black for reenactment appearances sake.

If you know how to make a leaf by necking down the stem and spreading the lump on the end, that is all you need to know about the forging process, form a rounded end instead of a point before spreading. Look up leaf forging on YouTube if that is your only source.

A dimple in the end of a tree stump or a soft edged hardy hole will allow you to form the spoon bowl. 

Be careful to avoid working the material too cold initially and avoid using hard edged tools to prevent any cracks or crevices which are difficult to clean. Smooth refined surfaces are the best for food stuffs/hygiene. So a final pass over the item at black heat will reduce the scale and rough texture. 

If you are splitting the fork with a chisel a file is your friend to remove any flash in the Vee.

Alan

[Gergely]

That was a very kind and useful answer, Alan. Thank you for your time to write it.

Bests:

Gergely

[Ridgewayforge]

The way that I forge spoons in to do a short faggot weld on the end of a round bar, either once or twice, to avoid necking down. Then you can keep say a 3/8" round bar as the handle, and have a decent sized spoon. 

[Daswulf]

I will see if I get a chance I will try to show you how I start mine out. There are other ways I'm sure. Basically what Alan said. 

Until then I made a post on ideas on how to make them more simply and cleanly. There was a lot of good ideas and information there. Have a read. 

http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/48005-fork-n-spoon/#comment-501504

 

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

There is a video out there of a Korean smith making spoons. I'll see if I can find it again.

[ThomasPowers]

I've seen two historical examples of making a two tined fork from heavy wire, one was a roman one made from bronze and in the  Klingenmuseum in Solingen Germany, IIRC and the other was one that dated to the American Revolutionary War and made out of wrought iron: Take a piece of heavy wire---like 1/8" and taper the ends and then bend it double in the middle and twist leaving the ends to be spread for the tines.