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Making a wooden cup
The pictures below will show you how a kuksa is made. This one I made for my daughter some years ago.
The tools I used was a folding saw (Sandvik Laplander), a knife, a spoon knife (both from Mora of Sweden) and a piece of sanding paper.
In the wild sand paper can be substituted with (Skavgras) horsetail (Equisetum hyemale) shown on the picture below.
The wood I used was birch, a small log about 10 cm in diameter.
The wood should be dry, but one could use fresh wood. If it cracks, just make a new one. The cup could also be burned out with a coal if you don’t have a spoon knife or gouge.
First I split the log and used the knife to smooth the surface. I then drew the outline of the cup onto the log with a pencil. Then I sawed and cut of the excess.
Now it began to look like a kuksa.
 
Use the knife to shape the cup, round it and finish the outside.
After this is done you begin with the bowl. Start from the middle and work your way out. The sides of the cup should have en even thickness.
After the bowl is finished you sand the cup and treat it with oil. Linseed oil (food grade) or any other oil you prefer.
Drill a hole in the handle and add a leather thong for belt carry. Or you could do a little more to it like I’ve done in the bottom picture.
The cup is now nearly finished. I decided I wanted an antler handle on it instead of just the wooden one. It is coloured with "herdins ekta bets", and oiled with linseed oil.
The brown colour on my own kuksa is made of bark. I boiled a small, dry piece of birch bark (inner bark) with half a cup of water.
Apply to the cup and let dry. Bark from Alder will give you a more reddish colour.
Finally I oiled the cup.
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