I made a titanium spork!

You could criticise Bristol Hackspace for being a little too focused on electronics, however it's not true to say they don't have the ambition to do more. One Hackspace member, Richard Sewell (http://jarkman.co.uk/), is a prolific maker. When he asked me if I'd like to be shown how to make a titanium spork I could not say no. 

Tools used for Spork

Making a spork isn't actually as difficult as I thought. If you have the right tools it's intuitive really. We started with a bit of cardboard onto which I drew my spork. I cut the cardboard out and placed it onto a sheet of titanium. A number of people seem surprised that you can get titanium. Richard buys it from one of two places which are Noggin End or Hempel Metals. The guy at Noggin End reportedly buys the off cuts from Airbus and touts them at model fairs.

Once I'd drawn around my card template onto the titanium sheet I took a set of Wiss Compound tin snips and cut the shape out. Some of the smaller off cuts are very sharp indeed and tend to fly all over the place so safety glasses are essential.

using a vice I clamped the spork shape and started the long process of filing down the edges. It's important to keep the file moving along the edge so as not to make one bit more filed than another. You should remove all the sharp parts and burs. Once the edges are filed they'll still feel rough. Take the file and file the edge at the flat sides. Using a Garryflex Blue Block which is a sort of block of rubber filled with grit, I rubbed all surfaces until they are smooth to touch. Any further smoothing was done with "Wet & Dry Paper" the 240 grit type.



After this essential prep work it was time to use hammers! Richard took a spade bit and drilled a hole in the top of a bit of wood. We placed the ends of the spork over the hole and hammered it with a Domeing Hammer to make the basic bowel shape at both ends.

The SPORK I made!

To add some strength to the handle and stop it folding whilst being used. To do this I used a creasing stake and a Delrin punch. Somewhat like the top of a cricket wicket the stake has a groove along the top which the punch, punches into.


To get a very smooth finish we use the Planishing Hammer and a lot of tapping at the spoon to make tiny dents all over. This adds the finish that you see in the pictures. To smooth out the flatter bits we used a Crosspein hammer. We did that onto a hockey puck.

I'm very pleased indeed with the spork I made. I'd like to run it as a workshop in the future. I'd also like to make a slightly slimmer one. Working with metal is very satisfying and not at all complex. I highly recommend getting stuck in!