I cut down a dead sassafras tree a while back and the way the growth rings on it were quite unusual.

Usually you'd see the pith right in the center, but on this tree it was all the way off on one side, so the growth rings went all to the way to where the actual center would be and the pith was on just one side.

I figured that'd be a pretty good piece of wood to make a cup out of

It was fun making this thing, I'm not too pleased with the inside of the cup, but the rest looks nice and it should be useful for when I have tea outside in the winter time.

I carved this thing with a few tools I made including the gouge, the hook knife, and the sheath knife. A lot of the rough work was done with a hatchet and this finishing work was done with a tool called a "scraper" which is really just a cut off section of a cheap hand saw. Scrapers are burnished, meaning one of the ends is rubbed back and forth with a hardened steel rod to push the metal downward, which creates a little lip of metal that is similar to the mushrooming you'd see on the struck end of a cold chisel. This little lip of metal acts as a blade which can remove very fine shavings and leave a very smooth surface.