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Saxonia Issue 01 Part 025
Wooden cup
By Rumrunner/VOID
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you are working with your computer a good cup of coffee is nice to
have within reach. But why not make your own cup, instead of using the
same mass-produced types that everyone else uses?
Here in Norway, we have long traditions with wood-work. One of them
is making cups out of wood. When sitting in the forest in a mountain
hill, having a fire in front of you, it's the wooden cup that belongs
there. It fits in, and it is a living piece of the surroundings.
Here, I will give you some hints about how to make such a cup.
First of all, there are no strickt guidelines to follow when making a
wooden cup. You have to use your imagination and try to see what you
can make out of the piece of wood that you have in front of you.
Therefore, this article will not have measures and so on, but there are
a few other things you should take into condideration before you start,
and here they are :
When you look for a suitable piece of wood, there are certain types
that are better than others for this purpose. I prefer to make cups out
of birch. This type of wood does not leave any taste in your coffee,
and it is easy to avoid cracks in the cup.
There are several oppinions as to what to do with the material before
starting to shape it. Some people say that you should cut a fresh piece
off a tree in winter, when the "juice" is out of the branches, in order
to get a good result. Others claim that you can cut off a piece at any
time as long as you put it in the freezer first. I have never found the
need for taking the material in the winter, nor put in in the freezer
first. However it IS important that the material is out of juice before
you start working with it. If not, it will dry out afterwards, and you
will most likely see that the coffer drips out of the cracks that the
drying has made. So, I think that you can use even a piece of firewood
as long as it is dry. Just look out for cracks before you start working.
Even very small cracks can easily expand, making the cup unusable.
If possible, find material big enough that you can cut off some in the
sides, as this makes it easier to see if the material is good for this
purpose.
Regarding tools, there are not many different tools that are neccesary.
You can do most of the work if you have a good knife (read about the
traditional Norwegian Tollekniv in the next issue), a chisel, and some
tools that is not listed in my dictionary, so I have to explain them.
The first one of them is almost a chisel, but it is curved on the edge,
that way it's much better for digging out the hole in the cup. It is
called skjejern in Norwegian. The next one is a knife, but not a
regular one. The blade is curved to make it suitable to cut inside the
hole in the cup (skjekniv in Norwegian). If you have the aove mentioned
tools, or at least some of them, you are ready to go. If you have some
kind of rasp to put on a drill, the work will be even easier. And if
there are some of these tools you don't have, you can make do with other
tools if you are patient enough.
So, now you have both a piece of suitable wood and tools, so you are
ready to go. I prefer to start off with cutting what should be the
bottom of the cup flat. That way, it's easier to have the material
standing steady when you clamp it to a table or whatever. You don't
have to worry much about getting an expensive working table though,
i made my first cup on the stairs at our main entrance, it was steady
enough when I used a screw-clamp (is that the right word) to fasten
it with.
After evening out the bottom of the cup, I usually start off with making
the hole, not all in one go, but enough so that I can see where and how
I should make the handle. Then, I usually cut the contours to the
handle. Then I like best to alternate somewhat, cutting out some of the
hole and working some on the handle.
When most of the hole is finished, I start to work on the outside of
the cup. At this point, you have to think about how much bigger you
want to hole in the cup, so that it it won't be too little material left
to cut in, after you have almost finished the outside.
Right, then we are approaching the end. I like to finish the inside
of the cup first, then finishing the outside, so that I don't get marks
from fastening the cup to the table.
Now, before you start using the cup, you should oil it with something
to avoid cracks. Most kind of food-oils will do, just make sure that
the oil doesn't taste too much as you probably don't want to ruin the
taste of good coffee. I use "matolje" which is tasteless. Some people
have found peanut oil to be good. Unlike some people, I never use glue
on the outside of the cup, as I want to keep it natural. I just sink
the whole cup into the oil, and rub it in. If you oil the cup using a
paintbrush, put it on layer by layer many times until the cup doesn't
"drink" more. Then wait a day or two, and repeat the procedure.
Then, when the cup has more or less dried from the oil, it's ready to
use, so make a good cup of coffee and enjoy.
Also, here are some points you can look at if you want to make the
cup really special, just to give you some ideas :
- if you have access to horn or bones from moose, raindeer or whatever,
you can decorate a piece of this with a burning-in pen (svipenn in
Norwegian) and carve out a little hole in the handle of the cup to
fit it in. Or you can decorate the wood directly.
- when you have trained some, you can make sculptures from the handle
of the cup itself. People have formed the handle as a fish or dog
and such with a good result.
- think of more ideas yourself.
- and in the end, remember that the main point is that the cup should
be good to use, and after long and trusty use the cup should be a
good companion when you are walking around in the forests (at least
I like that even more than working with the Amiga)
