Working wood

Birch Spurtle

I recently rediscovered how much I enjoy eating oatmeal in the morning, and as I have been experimenting with making the real stuff, and not the "quick" (sorry William Penn look-a-like guy), I thought it would be fun to try making it with the traditional stirring tool - the spurtle. Or spirtle. Or thible. Or thivel. Or thyvelle. Or - never mind, lets just stick with spurtle (pun intended).

I started to look at designs on Google, but in the end I did what I almost always do and just let the tools, wood, and my hand guide me.

Heres the birch I started with - its an air-dried scrap from a local saw mill thats been hanging around my shop for a couple of years waiting for me to start eating oatmeal again:




And heres what it became on the shavehorse:


Egads! Sandpaper! Yup - deal with it...

Here Im demonstrating the intended grip for use stirring the porridge:


And a different angle showing how the form of the handle evolved - it is curved on the back to nestle into the web between my thumb and index finger, and has two angled planes meeting in a raised ridge or arris on the front that matches the crook of my thumb.




I tried it out the next morning with some Bobs Red Mill Steel Cut Oats and it worked like a charm - added some Vermont maple syrup - mmm, mmm!