New Carving Tools

Now that I'm taking this woodworking hobby more seriously, I thought it would be neat to customize my own carving tools. I don't have enough metalwork experience to forge blades from scratch, but figured making some customize knife handles from the loads of wood scraps on hand would be simple enough if I could get my hands on new blade blanks.

After searching the net, I came across a fantastic site with just what I needed -Deepwoods Ventures selling various carving knife blanks. I decided to order their general carving knife, spoon carver, and "bent knife" (i.e. crooked knife blade). The crooked knife blade was the most interesting to me, as this is the traditional tool for paddlemaking and canoe construction. The Deepwoods Ventures blade is by no means a full length crooked knife blade. Its cutting edge is only 2" so it makes it more suitable to smaller jobs, but I wanted to try it out anyway.

Now that the blades had been selected, working on the handles was next. On my last excursion to the Carpenter's Square, I brought along a bunch of woodscraps destined for the fireplace and cut out various knife handle patterns so that I could experiment and find the right ones for my pudgy hands.

When the freshly forged blades arrived 2 weeks later (amazingly sharp and protected with an improvised foam sheath), I layed out the blanks on the balcony table and started to get a feel for the blade/hand patterns I liked.


The knife blanks; Various handles of birch, walnut, cherry
Once I had made a rough decision in my mind, I started shaping the handles with a coarse rasp, my indispensible Mora, and some sandpaper. Funny how sometimes, the handles that seemed to fit well as a blank, got less comfortable as they were rounded and shaped to appropriate size...and vice versa. In the end, I settled on the "whale - tail" walnut shape (3rd from top) as my preferred design for the general carving knife as it seemed most comfortable for the verical positioning of the blade. The cherry handle (4th from top) was also very comfortable, especially for the crooked knife hand position. The walnut "crooked handle" (1st from top) was cut to a standard shape for most crooked knives and was also nice in the hand, but the mini 2" blade seemed dwarfed by the huge handle size. I think I'll be keeping that handle for when I make a full sized crooked knife from a rusty file I have on hand (yet another project in the background). For the spoon carver, I ended up with the birch handle (bottom)

Once these were all shaped and sanded, I needed to drill the hole for the tang. The blades came with instructions to use a 19/64 drill bit that I marked off with red electrical tape to ensure proper depth of the hole to fit each tang. Then, while clamping in vise, I carefully drilled out a hole.


Marking out the depth with tape


Clamping and drilling out the tang hole
With some standard harware store epoxy on hand, the blades and handles were layed out and set. The next day I made some simple sheaths by sewing some leather coverings onto the temporary foam sheaths that shipped with the blades. After some basic labelling with the pyrography kit and oiling the handles, the knives were all ready for work. I've all ready used them with some spoon blanks and scrap wood. All in all an easy side project that serve me well for years to come.


Blades in position; epoxied up


Final Carving Knives

Paddling Knife

Here's a little diversion from my regular paddle making routine. I decided on ordering an easy Knife Making Kit from Ray Jardine's online site. Given my new found woodworking skills, the kit seemed simple enough. Epoxy pre-drilled wood pieces to a Mora Knife blank and carve out a handle to suit your fancy. In addition, I ordered the Sheath Kit because of a latent interest in leathercraft as well. My intention was to make a quality knife for paddling trips while also decorating it with a paddling motif.

The kits were well prepared for the novice. Following Ray's request, I will not post or provide specific details of the instructions, but simply show my work in progress in the following pics. Epoxying the knife handle was straight-forward and the handle material supplies (Alligator Juniper from Arizona) smelled absolutely fantastic. After using the template provided, I further shaped the knife handle with some rasps. The sanding was boring as usual, but using the various samples provided (course, medium, fine 320 grit), the handle smoothed out nicely.

The sheath kit had an appropriate sized piece of tooling leather from which the shape had to be cut out. For the decoration, I decided to use a canoeing image and wanted to burn using my pyrography machine. This would be my first attempt at burning on leather but read that burning on cheaper, chromium tanned leather would release toxic fumes. Ray replied to my email request and confirmed that it was vegetable tanned and therefore safe to use with adequate ventilation. Burning on leather was nice because of the absence of any grain (like on wood) but after bending and stretching the leather sheath to accomodate the knife, the image had some obvious vertical cracks.

Epoxied Components and Final Carved Handle


Sheath decoration, clamping, drilling stitching holes with awl bit


Stitching & Final Shaping
Overall, I've quite happy with it and am comfortable that I would be able to carve future knife handles and make appropriate sheaths with materials I have on hand. In fact, I'm seriously considering making my own crooked knife (mocotaugan) after reading a post on Canadian Canoe Routes and re-reading the David Gridmark's chapter contribution in Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own. I've already found an old rusty, high carbon steel file to shape into the blade. More on that project later.