First, the original inspiration. Or rather the second. The first fork-spoon I ever saw was in Rome, and I apparently wasn't allowed to take photos. This one here I saw in London. Since I first laid eyes on these crazy utensils I've wanted to build one. So 1.5 years later in my casting class, I finally am.
I've been attempting to do research on these things, but have been unable to find a name for them besides "folding (specifi name) fork with spoon bowl". Which is really ridiculous. And despite having its collection online for searching, the V&A in London has neglected to put up its fork-spoon. However, I was able to find a few more photos, and a weeee bit of history. It seems they were made of silver, one was found in gold, and I found one in bone (yuck), and they were carried by wealthy merchants. I assume that these merchants wanted to show off how wealthy they were by having these silver utensils to eat with (a novelty at the time) with ornate handles. But let's not spend too much money on this, better only pay for one handle and still have two utensils. Also, they were only popular from about 1580 to 1620.
Okay, now on to my project. We're required (in our metals casting class) to use a non metal object six times, and not cast things. Yeah, I know. So I'm making this fork-spoon, cast in silver, with exotic wood carved handles. Basically I'm making it kind of pointless to have a detachable spoon bowl, since there will be 6 handles for this thing, but that's besides the point. I've decided I want this object to be really luxurious and covetous. I think by the end of it I'll be clutching the box to my chest and not letting anyone touch it, because honestly I'm really loving the luxury of these materials. Did I mention the box? Well. It's going to be a partitioned thing, about 13"x4"x1.5" and made of rosewood. The wood came in today and it's gorgeous. Also, I'm going to cut foam bits to fit in each slot with valleys cut into them for the pieces to sit in, and these will be covered in silk charmuse. Yes.
Now on to the images!
I've already shown the one handle I carved first, as well as the fork end and the spoon bowl. Here are the rest of my wood pieces, post lathe trim and (mostly) pre carving.
More carved! Actually, this isn't even up to date, I'm almost finished with the walnut one. And, they're labeled now. Except I can't remember what the last one is. Something with two words, the second beginning with C. Irrelevant. I still like my first one best, but the project is due in 1.5 weeks, so I had to crank two out on the lathe for the sake of time. Also, Ziricote will not be carved! Well, it will, but it'd have taken all the time ever and have looked shallow and cylindrical. That would have sucked.
These are for the bottoms of the wood pieces, to be threaded and thus screwed into the fork.
See? Here they are almost finished, except that they aren't buffed, and the stems are too small. Not sure how I'm going to fix that either. I might cut them off and attach... something... to the ends instead. Ugh. Maybe I can get the right size wax rod for the next set and just cast extra bits to solder on. That'd probably be best.
And last, her are all my bits togetherish, because it's fun to take photos of things to see how they'll look.
