Indian crook knife

[paulgosker]

Hi guys,
Was wondering does anyone know where i could get one of these? saw RM use one for his birch bark canoe. The only ones i can find are damn pricey. Anyone know a cheap alternative? Im just looking for something i can make spoons/bowls with that also has the ability of a draw knife. Im not sure if the regular crook knives can do that as i dont own one.

Thanks,
Paul

 

[scanker]

These are well-suited for bowls/spoons and don't cost much: http://www.axminster.co.uk/category-Carving-Knives-207918.htm

Can't help with the draw knife aspect of the curved blades I'm afraid, as I haven't used them for that, but there is a separate drawknife listed.

 

[familne]

http://www.tamarackoutdoors.co.uk/

do one but may be a bit pricey for you.

 

[Shinken]

Get Dave Budd over on BB to make one for you. he's making a blade for me to my own specification

 

[douglass66]

hi in response to your question about the crooked knife ...it was made by alan wood just before he made the bush craft programs for tv....i was speaking to alan recently and he told me he made a few blades from 01 for him and heat treated them himself ....in the arga stove.

 

[OldJimbo]

For bowls and spoons you need a small blade and the best for the job is a hoof knife which can be found in most stores which do horse and farm stuff. Those will take lots of sharpening to work on wood but are cheap. The longer Indian crooked knives are more for large items such as sleds and snowshoes.

 

[OldJimbo]

Oops - page on small ones;
Small Crooked knives

and the big ones:
Indian Crooked knife

 

[beowolf762]

Hi Paul,
Check this guy out, he offers the stainless crook blade from the U.K. and he also offers hand forgred carbon steel crook knife blades. Look under the tools section.
http://www.poleandpaddle.com/
Sorry for not resonding sooner, just saw your thread. Hope this helps.
P.S. Funny I cant seem to find a source for the U.K. crook blade in the U. K.

 

[Ogri the trog]

Oops - page on small ones;
Small Crooked knives

Jimbo,
What a star you are.
Since the group buy fell through I've been thinking of making my own crooked knife. The first picture in your link is just the nudge I needed. I'm wondering if it might be less work on a grinder if you were to use a half round file as the base material rather than a flat file - you could even grind the handle end to a smaller square profile to fit within the handle.
Irrespective of that I'll be startign to grind up a blank from something soon!

Cheers Buddy

Ogri the trog

 

[OldJimbo]

I think that you'd be going to a lot of work to grind a crooked knife from a file. Normally they were made from thin stock such as trap springs, etc.
I don't watch group buys from the UK simply because of where I am, and postage. For a large crooked knife though, it'd be hard to do much better than the one which Gary Arenson had made by Wostenholm. There are other large designs such as the Hudson Bay Co which has a sort of twisted tip. If enough people over there were interested, then it should be easy to get Wostenholm to make up a bunch. There's still be lots of grinding and honing to do on them from my experience, but they are well worth the effort.
Gary may still have a bunch of blanks, and I can get his email if you want to PM me. He wrote the instructions on the pole and paddle page and the bottom picture is the blade he had made. I guess they're selling his stock for him.
It just seems that if Wostenholm can make them in Britain, then a lot of duty and postage could be avoided...

Now it is fun to use a long crooked knife just to see how well something that light works wood. Unless you are working big pieces of wood for toboggans or canoes, though, the hoof knife size makes much more sense.