Knives in the Works

With the current quarantine, I thought I'd find plenty of time to get things done for fun.  Ha!  The kids are home, too!  What time I have for projects is stolen in bits and drabs where I can sneak it.

However, I am working on getting a few knives finished up.  I recently made a batch of blades.  Here they are right after heat treatment:

The top two were me trying a forging technique that I'm not really happy with.  One of these will be a test blade.  The other, I don't know if I'll do much with it, but I'll get a handle on it, at least.

In the middle, a pair of small seaxes.  I love this blade shape.  I can't really justify it, I just do.

At the bottom, a pair of puukkos.  This is perhaps the most practical all-purpose blade form I make.  It is the Finnish all-around knife and the edge is very good for woodworking, though a puukko is good at a lot of cutting.  It isn't a prybar or a chopper, but just about everything else you could ask of a tool it does well.

I'm not claiming to make actual Finnish knives.  I know the puukko has become very popular lately, with some rather odd examples of non-Finnish made knives calling themselves puukkos.  I'm just going to say that these are inspired by one of my favorite knife forms and leave it there.

I had a few other blades waiting for finish grinding and handles.  I actually added a couple more after taking this picture.  Also shown are some crooked knives, a couple of gouges, and a kiridashi (wood marking knife) that will be worked on in the future.  I just put them in this batch for finish grinding.

For handle stock, I really like to use branch and sapling wood.  All of these knives have wedge construction, which involves drilling out the handle a little oversize and pounding in carefully-fit wedges beside the tangs to fill the holes.  And plenty of epoxy, of course.  The wedges give a nice strong fit and the epoxy makes it waterproof.  What more could you ask?

All of the wood was harvested locally.  It is birch (from saplings that were cleared off some garden space), chokecherry (which was being cleared from an area where it is considered invasive), and Amur cherry (branches trimmed from ornamental trees).  Part of the enjoyment for me in these knives is using free and found materials.  There's something really fun about knowing that there are beautiful handles hiding in wood that other folks throw in the garbage.

Once the epoxy has cured, I'll shape the handles, oil them, then wax them.  Then it is time for a final sharpening and they'll be ready for new homes.

This batch, I plan to just play around and experiment with the handle shapes I can get from a round stick.  Not shown is the one I turned on my dad's lathe.  A fully-round handle isn't the most practical because you can't tell where the edge is oriented without looking at it, but it can be pretty.  I'll include a picture of it with the next installment.  At that time, I should be done with the knives and ready to find them new homes.