About me

Meet the Craftsman: Ken Bownes

• I have been carving wood in Erie, Pennsylvania for years. I started the way most woodcarvers do — with a knife, a piece of interesting lumber, and some time on my hands. My hobby just gets more and more interesting as the spoon get more complicated.

• Every spoon I make starts as a raw piece of hardwood — black walnut, cherry, or hard maple sourced from local trees. I select each blank by hand, looking for the best grain patterns. The ones with character. The ones with history written into the wood.

• There are no machines involved in shaping my spoons. He uses traditional carving gouges and knives removing wood slowly until the form reveals itself. It takes time and care.

• Some of my customers keep the spoons and some buy them to give as gifts to people who enjoy cooking with good tools, while others buy love spoons as gifts for couples. My spoons will last for years becasue of the good wood and the care taken to make them.

My Process

I use traditional hand-carving methods, including axes, draw knives, gouges, spoon knives and sloyd knives.

Whenever possible, I split (rive) the wood by hand and shape it using axes and saws. Traditional hand tools are used to complete the basic shape. From there, all utensils are hand-sanded to obtain a wonderfully smooth finish.

I protect all of my utensils using natural linseed oil, which hardens into a strong coating through polymerization. This forms a relatively long-lasting finish that is both natural and nut allergy safe.

Love Spoons: Because of their extreme detail and intarsia elements a fret saw or scroll saw is used to remove waste wood. This is a deviation from the very ancient process of carving such spoons. But all such spoons are made like this now.

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Environmental Sustainability

My utensils are made from wood locally harvested in Erie and NW Pennsylvania. In fact, most of it comes from my neighbor’s houses here in Erie! All of this wood is removed for safety reasons or from trees that fall during storms. No trees are cut down in the making of Erie Woodcraft products.

I rescue and up-cycle wood that would otherwise be turned into firewood (creating CO2) or chipped for mulch (which requires lots of energy in the form of gasoline and again, produces CO2).

I aim for all of my work to be environmentally-friendly and sustainable.