First of all, thank you for the support and interest.
”Karvmärren” is a portable and foldable spoon mule. In Swedish that’s a ”Skedmärr” but since I believe there could be a lot more usage for it than spoons, I came up with the name ”Karvmärren”.
I have only been carving a few years but often I’ve been missing that third helping hand. And lately I’ve had some sore elbow muscles that needed to rest.
On Instagram I stumbled across a Japanese wood worker called “Iseilnam” and saw him sitting on a spoon mule that I’ve never seen before. Smaller and instead of clamping, a cord hold down the wood.
But as with most have horses or spoon mules I’ve seen, they take up a lot of space. Or if they fold, they fold into a lot of different pieces that easily could get lost.
In my childhood I’ve always been fascinated by stuff that folds and becomes as tiny as it’s possible. Or multi purpose tools/stuff that are more to the eye once unfolded.
Do I need to say that my favorite toys was the “Transformers”.
I was inspired of the Japanese spoon mule but added a few folding joints to see if it would be stable enough.
A slight 10 degree angle for the front box and mechanical stops where it should be fixed (both folded and unfolded) it was sturdy enough. And with the seat locking the back legs it felt like a keeper.
The mechanism inside consists of a pulley, elastic cord and steel wire. The loop has some extra protection of cloth covered silicon tube. So if a user by mistake cuts the loop, the protection can easily be exchanged.
Inside the openable front box there’s 2:1 pulley system that makes you use twice the traveling distance of the foot but half the distance m needed to hold something in the cord loop. That means also that the force needed to hold something really tight is half of what it should have been if you held it by your own hand. The bodyweight is enough for the loop to grab tight.
The 2/3mm steel wire (PVC coated) is easily user replaceable if torn or if you want to experiment with other materials. And as long as the cord/wire isn’t too slick or slippery you could almost use whatever 4-8mm cord you find at the local warehouse. Make sure that the cord/wire is stiff.
It wasn’t easy to find out the best general height and length of “Karvmärren” but have been adjusting it to be used with both drawknife/spokeshave or knife/spoon knife. Then of course we are all of different height and length. But I’ve let a few people of different length try it and I believe I’ve found some kind of golden middle ground.
Karvmärren is made of carefully chosen pine wood from northern Sweden. All hardware are made out of stainless steel.
Every part will be made in a small workshop as a ”two man operation” in Malmö, south of Sweden.
Technical specs:
Material: Pine, stainless steel and natural tanned leather
Weight: 6,8kg
karvmärren 