Sloyd Knife Video

 Here we go!  If you don't see the video window, click this link: https://youtu.be/cPExoNYlvi4

Sloyd Knives

 If you look over my blog, you'll see that I carve spoons.  My primary tools are a hook knife and a sloyd knife.  Sloyd is a Swedish word for wood crafting.  Essentially, by saying "sloyd knife," I'm saying "wood working knife."  But it is fun to use a foreign word.  

I found out that a teacher and student teacher at my daughter's school are both spoon carvers, too.  Because I want to be extra supportive of teachers right now, I thought it would be good to give them each a new sloyd knife.  (I don't want to get into the whole concern about knives in schools.  There are no students in that school right now, so it isn't a big thing to leave a knife in a wrapped package.)

I made the handles of Alaska birch.  Blades are my usual repurposed spring steel.  It is a good steel and I've been very happy with how it performs in my blades so far.  

Here's a picture of the two knives just before I did the sharpening and stropping.  

As usual, my mark is the rune Wyn/Wunjo (depending on if you use the Anglo Saxon or the Norse name for it).  It looks like an angular P and it makes the sound of a W, so both my initials are there in one mark.  Sort of fun!

Video of the process is also on the way.  As with the blacksmith mini-seaxes, I chose to just make it a music video and play random tunes on my banjo.  If I ever get any feedback from my videos, I'll get some idea of what people like in my YouTube channel.  

Look for the video link tomorrow.

A New Video!

 I know I haven't posted anything in months, but here's something, at least!  

I made these two little blacksmith knives because I found a sketch in one of my old sketchbooks and realized that would be a fun little knife to bang out.  Nothing profound, just a case of "why didn't I make this before?"

They are deliberately rustic and rough. But they are still comfortable and would fit the role of the non-folding pocket knife.  I actually plan to make neck sheaths for them and have them hung like a necklace.

I also took a video of the whole process of forging them.  Here are the highlights.  I am trying something new, here.  Instead of narrating my process, I decided to just play the banjo in the background.

Enjoy!

Edit: this video isn't showing up when I look at the blog on my phone, so if you don't see the video window, just click this link: https://youtu.be/b05JYJynG84