Kuksa in plum

Hi, A friends birthday has been creeping up on me and I was stuck with what to make. Another spoon? I am sure she would have appreciated it but it wasn't novel. The end of the summer I had spent some time near Lake Madine which is in a region in France famous for Mirabelle fruit. There were lots of orchards, and some of which had recently cut off branches lying around. Never having worked with Mirabelle I thought I would give it a go and pick up a few choice pieces.

My first attempt to make something from the wood was a failure, primarily because it cracked and deformed as it dried.. tried to rush it really so probably partly my fault. But what wonderful colour and grain it had, reds and yellows and off white. It would have looked gorgeous all oiled up but was a bitch to work.

So should I go for Mirabelle again? Not confident, so started looking for something else. I asked a friend if they had any fruit tree off cuts and they came up with Prune (Plum). Great I thought, that should work.

This was going to be my first attempt at a Kuksa so not very sure about dimensions and the bit of wood I had been given wasn't that big.. particularly once cleaved. It looked like I might just about get something from the remaining heart wood. It was then that I realised that it was looking a bit familiar  Yes you are right, the same family as the Mirabelle, same colour and same hardness. To late, I had started, so I will finish.

The shape and design just evolved.. I did do a sketch before I started but the wood just took over. The colour and grain are magnificent and it is a shame that I didn't have quite enough heart wood to work with. But hey, this stuff is natural, doesn't follow rules.

Most of the work was carried out with a gouge, knife and my fabulous new (well 2nd hand) spoon gouge. I had bought this from Old Tools online and with a bit of care I got a nice edge on it and it did its part of the job very nicely. Because of the severity of the sweep it was only good for clearing out the bottom of the cup. I used a gouge for the near vertical sides. I know that ordinarily, making a Kuksa is done just using a spoon knife, and next time I will try this approach.. But I just wanted to play with my new tool!!


To finish the thing off I added a simple design of the Scorpio birth sign with a few stars, It works OK but next time I will create a more original design / pattern. I used Walnut oil to finish as suggested on someone else's blog.