Woodcarving knives. couteaux de sculpture sur bois

I have recently made these woodcarving knives after patterns I found on St Thomas Guild blog. Although it seems difficult to connect medieval knives specifically to wood working, as knives can really do many different jobs, these seem to have been connected in some way to specific woodcarving/whittling of carpenters and coopers.

J’ai récemment fait ces couteaux de sculpture sur bois d’après des modèles que j’ai trouvés sur le  St Thomas Guild blog. Bien qu’il semble difficile de connecter couteaux médiévaux spécifiquement pour le travail du bois, comme les couteaux peut vraiment trouver beaucoup d’emplois différents, ceux-ci semblent avoir été relié de quelque façon à la sculpture sur bois spécifique  grignotage des charpentiers et les tonneliers.

As a knifemaker, I like to try new ideas in knifemaking (well, new to me) and made these little knives, as close to the patterns as I could. The geometry of the blades as been reproduced as accurately as I could. The handles are a bit different from the pictures on the blog, but I thought that shouldn’t be detrimental to the working of the knives. (I just used bits of woods I already had on the bench)

The blades are: 94 mm long, 16 mm wide , 70mm long, 14mm wide and 63mm long, 12mm wide, all three with convex grind.  I haven’t had time to try them much on wood yet, but they cut tomatoes, onions and meat very well indeed. I think the larger one, with a thicker blade (3mm) and a scandi grind, will make a very capable bushcraft knife.

En tant que coutelier, j’aime  essayer de nouvelles idées dans la coutellerie (enfin, de nouveau pour moi) et fait de ces petits couteaux, au plus près des modèles que je pouvais. La géométrie des lames a ete reproduit le plus fidèlement que je le pouvais. Les poignées sont un peu différentes des images sur le blog, mais je pensais que cela ne devrait pas être préjudiciable au fonctionnement des couteaux. (J’ai ‘utilise des morceaux de bois que j’avais déjà dans l’atellier)

Les lames sont: 94 mm de long, 16 mm de largeur, 70mm de long, 14mm de large et 63mm de long, large de 12 mm, tous les trois avec  emouture convexe.Je n’ai pas eu le temps de les essayer bien sur le bois encore, mais ils ont coupé les tomates, les oignons et la viande très bien! Je pense que le plus grand, avec une lame plus épaisse (3mm) et une emouture Scandi, fera un couteau bushcraft très capable.

 

Don’t do that to your new knife!

I finished a new friction folder for J.  a few days ago. It was duly posted, J.  happily received it and was very pleased. Perfect, I like a happy customer!

Fast forward a couple a days, I received an Email from him. Disaster:  the blade is now swinging loose, whereas it was very tight when I sent it. What could have happened? there are no adjustable parts on a friction folder: the tightness of the blade in the handle is entirely controlled by the riveting process. The wood scales are generally quite thin, so unlikely to shrink enough to get a loose pivot. And the blade, washers, pins and liners don’t do shrinking…

J's knife

So what happened?  I received the knife back a couple of days ago:  nothing that could be seen.   The mystery was finally solved when I asked if J. had central heating.  It turns out the knife spent the night sitting on a radiator, which went on in the morning…. I don’t know how long it was sitting on there, dessicating!

People tend to forget that wood is a natural material and is sensitive to changes in  humidity level. So please, don’t do it to your new knife particularly if it’s me who made it!

Also, please don’t try to sharpen and/or polish your shiny new blade with one of those…it don’t work! I had to make a new blade for someone who’d done just that.

Spoon carving knives

The title says Spoon carving knives, but they can be used for other hollow things as well.  About 2 weeks ago, I posted about a small spoon carving knife I had made with a forged silver steel blade. I have now replaced the handles for something longer and simpler. Also, I have forged a few more blades, both left and right handed ones. Here are a couple of pictures of one left handed and one right handed blades.

The handles are hand carved Ash, slightly burned with a blow torch to give them a bit of character, then oiled with Linseed oil. The blades are epoxied into a hole in the handle. The holes are drilled at an angle into the handle to give the blade a slight up and back sweep.

Left and right handed carving knives

Close up view of the blades

I will be  forging  some more of those blades, with different curves, from flatter curves to some with tighter curves.

I forgot to say, I used some 1/4″ (6mm) round silver steel bar for those blades.

Nearly made it to the V&A London

Last year I  received this  Email from a researcher from the V&A Museum in London.

Dear Sir
I am currently conducting research on behalf of the Victoria & Albert
Museum, London, for a forthcoming show slated for Sept 2011 about
skills and making. At this stage of our reseach, we would like to
inquire about the availability of one of your bespoke canoes found
through: http://www.birchcanoes.com/bespoke.htm

Could you please let us know what the availability of the piece is –
is there one already built , for example. It would be great if you
could also share with us some basic object information such as
dimensions, materials used and weightage.

Many thanks for your help with this. Please do not hesitate to contact
me if you have any questions at this time.

The canoe in question is this one. I built it a few years ago now.

Hunter's canoe

Inside of the hunter's canoe

I used a very small drawing from the book: The bark canoes & skin boats of North America, by Adney & Chappelle.  I lofted the drawing  to full size and made stations from the drawings. The canoe was built using strips of Red Cedar and a layer of Alaskan Yellow Cedar. The inside framings are also yellow veneers. The twarts are carved of White Ash.

Nothin came out of the V&A request. I had sold the canoe well before the enquiry and I received no reply when I offered to build another one!

Never mind, just the factt hey got interested was quite good.

What’s a crooked knife?

What is a crooked Knife?

There are many different type of  tools  with curved blades. People seem to call anything with a curved blade a crooked knife.

The proper Crooked Knife or, to give it some of it’s Native American names, the Wagikoman, Mocotaugan, Mukutakan, Bikahtagenigan, the French named it le Couteau Croche, appear to have originally been a Native American tool made using beaver teeth and, most probably other material such as stones. Later, when white people turned up uninvited, taking over the show and bringing many unwanted things, they also brought steel with them. Presumably because steel is stronger than beaver’s teeth, (I assume, having never used a beaver’s tooth, to make a knife, I wouldn’t mind trying to make one, if someone out there has any beaver’s teeth to spare!) the crooked knives acquired steel blades.

Depending on what you read, the word crooked refers to the shape of the handle rather than the blade, but other texts assert the name refers to the shape of the blade and not to the handle.

So to me, a Mocotoguan is a tool like this:

The crooked knife, or Mocotaugan

And you hold it like this:

How to hold a right handed crooked knife

It is a very versatile tool, and was used primarily to work green woods, rather than dry woods.

Apart from an ushtashku (axe), one can think of no other tool as important to the Innu hunter as the mukutakan (crooked knife). This multi-purpose knife was used to shave thin planking and ribs for canoes and toboggans, make stretching boards to dry furs, carve wooden dolls for the children, fashion snowshoe frames and drums, and many other objects out of wood…

Using the crooked knife

Another of the characteristics of this tool is that you pull it towards you, rather than pushing it away from you. It is more akin to using a draw knife, albeit a one-handed one. Native Woodsmen didn’t carry a bench or a vice in the woods with them, so they held the piece to be worked in one hand and then held the knife in the other hand. A obsession with Health & Safety has conditioned people to worry about pulling a sharp blade towards themselves, in fear of cutting themselves open. If you hold the Mocotogan correctly, hold your elbow against your side and work green wood as was intented, there is no more reason to cut yourself than with any other tools.

The blades can be many shapes and sizes, from a straight blade, sticking straight out of the handle, to a curved blade with compound angles . From my own experience, the curve at the end of the blade is there more to prevent digging into the work with the tip rather than to be used for hollowing . It can be used for hollowing, but I don’t think this was the entended purpose for the majority of the knives. Again from my own experience, I believe the blades need to be thick enough not to bend.

Other tools with curved blades

There are other curved knife blades available, and I have seen most of them called crooked knives, though they definitely are not.

The hook knife, as used by farriers

The loop knife

The good old Mora

Then,  there are the carving blades made by  Kestrel Tools.  These are high quality, I would almost say dainty, carving tools blades. They are carving knives blades rather than crooked knives.

Of course, a crooked knife is a very versatile tool. It’s not just wood you can use it on!

Taking meat of the bone

In my view then, it’s horse for courses . Spoon knives for hollowing, curved carving blades for carving, hoof and loop  knives for horses’ feet.

So then, the Crooked Knife is the best tool for all purpose green wood work, or for dry softwood, and, in my (not humble or apologetic at all!) opinion the Crooked knife is, and deserves to be  the  true, versatile, Bushcraft knife.

Winter day…

Ice on the river bank

Well, you got to start somewhere, haven’t you…

Happiness is a dog, asleep . He does not wreak the place when he is asleep! Heureux, mon chien. Il ne detruit pas la maison quand il est endormie!

Here is the first post of my new blog.  I have decided to come to wordpress, and for now to use the free blog, and see how it goes.

Voici mon nouveau blog. J’ai decide d’utiliser WordPress, et pour le moment un blog gratuit, pour voir comment sa marche.