My wife asked me to make a "spurtle". I've looked online and didn't really find a design. (BTW it seems like there is a round one and a kind of flat one with rounded ends like a paddle) She wants the paddle version.
If you have something you could share I would appreciate it. Some look kind of curved but I hope to do flat with a round handle.
Let me know what you have experience with.
What is a good wood to use? I guess something with closed grain like walnut, cherry, maple.
I didn't know that there's a type of spurtle that has a flat end.
Like this?
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attachment=34085]
Was piddling around in the shop a couple years ago and turned the long round one. Sycamore.
LOML got the other one from somewhere last fall; don't know what it's made from. Any straight-grained piece of close pore wood should do, I think.
The flat ended spurtles usually have long and narrow flat ends. Kind of like a narrow spatula stretched out. I have this narrow spatula shown below (purchased) that I have found to be extremely useful. The difference is that the grip end would be round.
Littledeer brand - sold by Lee Valley.
![[Image: EV359R-mapleware-narrow-spatula-right-handed-f-10.jpg]](https://assets.leevalley.com/Size4/10103/EV359R-mapleware-narrow-spatula-right-handed-f-10.jpg)
(03-13-2021, 08:27 PM)toolmiser Wrote: [ -> ]My wife asked me to make a "spurtle". I've looked online and didn't really find a design. (BTW it seems like there is a round one and a kind of flat one with rounded ends like a paddle) She wants the paddle version.
If you have something you could share I would appreciate it. Some look kind of curved but I hope to do flat with a round handle.
Let me know what you have experience with.
What is a good wood to use? I guess something with closed grain like walnut, cherry, maple.
Bear in mind what the traditional spurtle was designed for - stirring the porridge. Back in the day, a sticky, thick, almost dough-like mess. Thus the handled dowel type. Less drag as direction changed.
If you're after a spatula, make a spatula. Whatever she wants. I use cherry or yellow birch.
Plenty of them show up on an Etsy search, here’s one to view.
Wikipedia has a definition with pictures "a wooden Scottish kitchen tool, dating from the fifteenth century, that is used to stir porridge, soups, stews, and broths ". I made one from hard maple as another book recommended and it worked well. You see advertising today selling spurtles as wooden kitchen tools of just about any design can make a profit on.
(03-17-2021, 08:17 PM)stoppy Wrote: [ -> ]I’ve been seeing them advertised on TV as a set, remembered the name 
.
https://www.buyspurtle.com/
That is what she saw and wants me to make. I guess I work cheap, or need to justify tool purchases made over the last 30+ years.
(03-17-2021, 08:43 PM)toolmiser Wrote: [ -> ]That is what she saw and wants me to make. I guess I work cheap, or need to justify tool purchases made over the last 30+ years.
Looks like what Mom used to correct behavior when I was a kid. Now it has an ancient Scottish name?
My Mom used to threaten us (me) with a yard stick. I was at a paint store a couple years ago, and they handed me a stir stick, and I said my Dad used to call them "paddling sticks", I got a few looks for that comment.