Aluminum Camping Spoon

As we wrap up this first project, I am excited to share my spoon’s “final” form and everything that went into making it. I beleive the aesthetic turned out exactly as I planned. The aesthetic I went for is of light, aluminum outdoors gear. For example, my aluminum spoon would work well with this carabiner below (image from US rigging). The clean lines and bright silver finish will be seen in my final spoon. This aesthetic is modern, light, airy, and bright.

My spoon turned out to be incredibly light, and the 220 grit, somewhat brushed looking finish on it makes it almost glow in direct light. Images of the “final” product are shown below. I think that there is still work to be done on the spoon, including more hand sanding to remove all imperfections and jaggedness. I’m happy with how the spoon turned out and it is definitely a lot of fun to spin around. I’m excited to put it in with my camping gear and utilize it this summer!  The final design is smooth, feels very light in the hand, and is the perfect size for camping. It has a finger/carabiner hole at the bottom and a rectangular, 3/8″ deep bowl at the end for optimal scooping.

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I will now summarize the manufacturing process. First, I milled the “slot” for the scoopy part of the spoon. This was the most difficult part so far because programming the rectangle was kind of strange with the unique dimensions of the slot. Also, the ball end mill leaves channels in the bottom of the scooper that I need to figure out how to smooth. The following week, I cut the big hole in the end of the handle using the mill again. This was relatively easy because the circle only needed a center point and radius to program it on the mill. Then, I milled two slots into where I wanted the final handle thickness to be. The next week, I continued these slots all the way down to above the finger hole and removed the scrap aluminum. This was followed by getting the final profile on the belt sander and then a few hours of hand filing to acheive the nice smooth curves and symmetric geometry. Finally, an hour or so of hand sanding was done, but I still need to put some more time into that to get it looking nice. Below is a screenshot of my manufacturing process slide from my final presentation.

My vision was to created a solid, light, functional, yet beautiful artifact that was unique and would stand out among other camping gear. Lots of camping gear is designed with only functionality in mind, so I was excited to bring a more artistic approach into it. I believe I mostly achieved the functional design I was going for. My only issue is that the bowl is carved a little to sharply. I imagine it might be somewhat difficult to get all of the yogurt or mashed potatoes out of the corners. However, I did expect that the rectangle design might not be perfect for functionality. I think it was worth it because I love the look of the geometric spoon.

Next I will likely continue sanding the spoon until it is refined to my liking and then test it in the field this summer. Overall, I think this project went very well and I love the way my spoon turned out. I was very grateful to have the chance to share it with my pod during presentations and am excited for the larger final project!