Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/16/measuring-spoons-made-from-pine-cones.html
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Thank you, like the shells of some long-extinct tortoises.
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I find these videos (woodworking, silversmithing, etc.) relaxing as well.
The other day I (inadvertently) watched an hour-long video of a guy turning an oak burl into a bowl. As I was trying to explain it to a friend, she couldn’t stop laughing at me 
(Edit: I have no idea how you’d make a bowel out of a hunk of tree. 
)
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So, this occurred to me while watching the other video, I acknowledge how beautiful these are as objects, but how practical are they for actually measuring? Or are you simply scooping into some additional item for measure?
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No talking! Just the sounds of making. 
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I increase the speed on the videos to 2x, as a time saver, though it likely means I just watch twice as many videos in the same span of time that I would have spent anyway.
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Dedicated coffee spoon is legit, as it’s often used at lowest caffeine deficit, and faculties needed to find a spoon may be at low ebb. Also, using the same size spoon trains you to know how much is good for getting appropriate amount of coffee, as you’re comparing apples to apples each day.
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That’s beautiful! Nice work. 
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A lot of resin and a core of pine cone. At one point, I imagined it was going the direction of the cartoon (was it Bugs Bunny?) where an entire tree is cut down into a single toothpick.
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Maybe I’m a cranky old cynic (and feel free to ignore me if so) but I wish people would call stuff like this what it is- an epoxy spoon. Half of maker YouTube now is people encasing things in epoxy and calling it a wooden object or a stone object or whatever. These are epoxy measuring spoons, which is frankly a little gross unless they used food safe epoxy (which a lot of these videos don’t because they are sponsored by epoxy companies that service the boating industry or similar).
Okay, end of crankiness. Apologies, and carry on.
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I don’t think that’s cranky at all!
It actually gives us non-maker types some really useful info. I had no idea about the different epoxies.
Thanks!
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Yep it is a bit misleading. Before I watched the video I was wondering how the heck they got a solid spoon out of a pine cone without adding anything. It’s also distressing to see that much resin go to waste on the lathe. I wonder if it can be reused in any way.
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Anyone have a good cheap non-toxic epoxy/resin/plastic to recommend? Am thinking of making a rail spike and wood coat rack, and some DIY use resin to keep the spikes secure in the wood. I’ve never used resin (except for tiny amounts in microscopy) was wondering if anyone had experience/advice, good or bad, using the stuff. I have UV handy for crosslinking, dunno if resin is more trouble than it’s worth.
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I remember one version of that story in an ancient Mad magazine spoof of Robinson Carusoe. First thing that came to mind!
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Gather up the tendrils, stuff 'em in a plastic cup, pour in a different color resin, turn some spoons on a lathe, and on and on, ad infinitum!
(I have no idea if combining the lathed-off parts with new resin would be physically sound, but I like the idea…)
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Yeah, my initial thought was, “Well, that’s quite pretty and a nice use of a resource that would otherwise be wasted.” Then I saw all the resources wasted to make it - not just the resin, but the wood, too. The material that just got thrown away was enough to make dozens of spoons, it looked like…
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The worst kept secret of the USian maker movement, is that most of these “solutions” are in search of a problem to solve.
And if it were somehow possible to turn off the “social class” filter on this game, the “fake problems” would migrate away from, “how to us a pine cone to portion coffee” toward, “how to properly value shelter/medicine/transport/etc so the most people benefit and the fewest people suffer”
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Maybe the “problem” is the pleasure of creating.
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Thanks for superb information.
