Source long handled spoon knife and sharpening

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Nearest I can find is a Beavercraft SK2. I watched a YT vid the other day where the guy talked extensively about one but now cant remember which vid it was. I'm sure he said it was a Welsh design/or name.

Anyone able to help? I want one.

As an aside, how does one best sharpen one of these things!



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plastic-ninja

Full Member
Jan 11, 2011
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cumbria
I think Nic Westerman has quite a waiting list these days. Those blades are fantastically sharp straight out of the box. His sharpening video is excellent too.
Cheers, Simon
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
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McBride, BC
Buy the blade from the best, the Pacific Northwest bladesmiths who supply the great totem pole carvers.
Then you make the handle and haft the blade yourself. Not at all difficult.
About 14" is as long as practical unless you deliberately need to plane split wood to get a smooth drawing surface.
Most real crooked knives used by First Natipons carvers are 12" or less in handle length.

I'm sure you have see this toy box before:
 

mr dazzler

Native
Aug 28, 2004
1,722
83
uk
I'm inclined to buy the steel and insert into my own handle.

Umm....when I figure out how that is done. How hard can it be, eh.

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this is how I did 2 bent knives
The blade was a crescent knifeworks made in Canada. They are OK but don't like having heavy oak beams dropped on them they break..... I have made a few of my own blades too. I usually whip them on to the handles
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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McBride, BC
Pacific Northwest First Nations carvers and others usually surface haft the blades of both knives and adzes.
There is no fundamental reason to center haft the blades.

I see that Kestrel center-hafts their straight blades for wood carving.
I suppose that's useful but once again, not really necessary.
http://kestreltool.com/index.html

OTOH, Jamie surface hafts both flat and straight knives. I don't have any of those.
https://www.jamie-sharp.com/

I have a straight knife. A Moor large chip carving knife in a really goofy-looking plastic handle.
Brutally robust construction and steel.
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
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At the risk of sounding more selfish than usual, I have written an illustrated guide to hafting a crooked knife.
I just don't feel like repeating it all. I hope it answers questions.

>Go to the Wood Carving Illustrated Forums web site
>Scroll down to Wood Carving Tools, Technology & Sharpening.
>In there, maybe page 2 by now, you will find a recent thread =
Pacific Northwest First Nations Crooked Knife Build.

Probably should do another to explain the sharpening/honing process that I had to learn.
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,664
McBride, BC
Nice knives. I see that the Woods crooked knives are single bevel only = you have to buy a pair to make all cuts.
Maybe I missed it but I didn't see if you could buy blades and haft your own.

Pacific Northwest native traditional blades are the oldest and more economical with both edges sharpened.
I have built up quite a few of both single and double edged blades. Each has it's use.
 

gra_farmer

Full Member
Mar 29, 2016
1,800
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Kent
Nice knives. I see that the Woods crooked knives are single bevel only = you have to buy a pair to make all cuts.
Maybe I missed it but I didn't see if you could buy blades and haft your own.

Pacific Northwest native traditional blades are the oldest and more economical with both edges sharpened.
I have built up quite a few of both single and double edged blades. Each has it's use.
Yes you can buy blades on there own, scroll down on the page.

I have his axe too, very balanced tool
 

mr dazzler

Native
Aug 28, 2004
1,722
83
uk
Nice knives. I see that the Woods crooked knives are single bevel only = you have to buy a pair to make all cuts.

that's the BIG benefit of a first nations bent knife, incredible versatility...left to right, right to left, pull, push, skewed, straight on, scooping...... without necessarily having to reposition the workpiece that much. Why fanny about with a "matched pair" :ambivalence: its daft when you can "kill 2 bird with one stone"? But then, more sales for knife makers and sharpening papherenalia I guess.
I got one of r wood's spoon knives, out of curiosity maybe a year ago. Its "ok" but not that great...once you've used a first nations knife, the single edge only seems sadly lacking and limiting, you go to do a cut by instinct and then remember oh that is blunt that side:aargh:. It didn't cause my carving style to advance in leaps and bounds as people sometimes think will happen if you get a "hand made tool", and I certainly wouldn't buy another of his any way. My frost 163 (admittedly heavily altered and modified with thicker longer handle, narrowed blade width, and reduced thickness, and others) performs just as well as r woods version. But then it takes time and patience to learn all that stuff.
 
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Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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When I made the change to the tools of the Pacific Northwest carvers,
I was not interested in blade sources but the local regional ones.
Anybody around the perimeter of the Salish Sea.

Farrier's knives, both new and used, are most broadly accessable here.
The bladesmiths don't do the best of jobs in marketing but the word does get around.
Just as well as I had little appetite to learn to make my own blades from files, etc.

Other than the 2-handed planer knives that I've built, I don't see very many long-handled crooked knives.
I think that there's a center of balance point in the handle that tips you back, away from the work.
I've just finished a big Kestrel C-C blade in a 14" birch handle.
My thinking is that if the balance is all wrong, I'll start pruning 1" at a time off the end and see how I like the change.

The handle diameter, the Kestrel Constant, is something to experiment with to avoid fatigue when you carve all day.

Of course, nobody slashes about with an axe.
However, I can see the more multipurpose nature of such a bushcraft tool.
Most rough out approximations are done with elbow adzes and D-adzes.
There are two fine examples where hafting the blades is a pleasant task.
Handle patterns are available so the construction has few obstacles.

I don't believe that the subject matters so much as the very act of carving.
 

mr dazzler

Native
Aug 28, 2004
1,722
83
uk
Most rough out approximations are done with elbow adzes and D-adzes.
In the last 6 months or so after a lot of practice, I finally got going with the d adze.
The first time I tried one several years ago I thought this sucks, but wouldn't be without it now. ....The blade was shaped out of an old sheffield plane blade, pitch pine handle lashed on tight with a strip of bike inner tube
 
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Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
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McBride, BC
Gregg (Kestrel Tool) claimed that you shouldn't order a D adze or even the blade unless you know what you want to do.
Well, how in the hell am I supposed to know without using one? So I bought a balde, I had the pattern = easily made.
The snail was added to remind me of my usual carving speed.
I can't strike well enough to texture a surface. Other than that, it's a dream to use.

DAdzeA.JPG

Then, I got some 1/4" copper bar and had a smithy make a copper blade (does not cut well at all.)
The whipping is all #18 tarred nylon seine twine.
CopperDAdzeB.JPG
 

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