has anyone made a fork?

[seventhdevil]

i've been asked to make a for to eat with and wondered if anyone would recommend a timber to use.

i envisage using boxwood, olive, maple, cherry or some very hard wood that wont break too easily.


what would you use?

[bodrighywood]

Something with a long grain such as ash maybe? Maple and sycamore are traditionally used for eating implements as well due to their natural anti-bacterial properties. Cherry is one of those woods that some reckon has toxins so perhaps best avoided? Birch is used for some eating implements as well.

pete

[fuzzyturns]

I wouldn't go with an open grain wood, you'd always get bits of the food stuck in the grain, unless you cover it with some sort of plasticky varnish (and that's probably not food safe, either).
Birch should work. Most of the local sycamore is probably a bit on the soft side, but some american maple species are quite hard. And I've seen a lot of cooking spoons made from beech.

[seventhdevil]

i think i'll practise on beech or sycamore and probably end up using field maple, canadian hard maple, olivewood or birch.

i might try a bit of boxwood if i feel brave enough.

the only other microporous woods i can think of are hawthorn, whitebeam, spindle, alder, hazel, strawberry tree, apple, pear and hornbeam.