Dgui is right, if you don't want the thickness you will be rasping a good bit off your block of wood. The plus is, that with a good rasp, pine rasps fast and easy.
For what I wanted, as the above post of the pine catty can show by the side view, I wanted the thickness. I used all but shavings off the thickness to craft my catty.
I trimmed the round corners off the 2x4 and had to glue two pieces side by side to get the width I wanted for the catty.
I urge you to dowel the forks!! The one above (and another from pine I made) had each fork break off. I glued them back on and it now has two 1/8 in dowels (angled strategically) all the way down the inside of each fork into the handle. I can be tricky to get the dowel in as the small diameter ones don't have the grooves down the length to make room for the glue as the dowel is pushed in the hole. Unless I have never seen grooved small diameter.
Or perhaps one larger size dowel will accommodate your design, which would be good too.
