Draw Knifes

[Minotaur]

Have an old draw knife with the right angle handles.

Thinking about losing those handles, in favor of the frost style straight line style.

Any reason not to?

 

[Longstrider]

Frosts style straight handles will not give you anywhere near as much control over the angle between the blade and the workpiece as the ones your knife already has. All the 'twist' of that angle is transferred to your grip with straight handles. With handles at 90 degrees to the blade, that twist is overcome by leverage, not by your grip, making the tool much more 'hand friendly' to use for any length of time.

 

[Tjurved]

They are two different tools. Frosts "drawknife" is called "späntkniv" in swedish.

 

[Dave Budd]

also the frosts drawknives aren't draw knives, they are push knives They work well in the pushing motion, but have diddly squat control in the pull, but not because of the handle so much as the fact that the blade is double bevelled like a knife. Other than that, what Ian says is spot on

Drawknives come with a variety of angles from 45 degrees down to 90 and then at different angles to the blade as well (my personal fave has the handles about 70 to the length and down towards the bevel side by about 15). Then different varieties have longer or shorter handles giving a different feel and amount of leverage.

 

[Longstrider]

There you go ! Push-knives eh ? Never knew that.
Might be because I've never had one (of the Frosts) I tend to just whack stuff with a bowie and hope it turns out right

 

[robin wood]

There you go ! Push-knives eh ? Never knew that.
Might be because I've never had one (of the Frosts) I tend to just whack stuff with a bowie and hope it turns out right

Indeed, I was always a little confused at Frosts making a tool which most folks said didn't work, which it doesn't as a draw knife. Use it as a push knife though and it is great. This is good for bushcrafty types as a drawknife only really works when combined with a shave horse or when work is clamped in some way whilst a push knife does all the same things but with the work just resting on a block.

So my advice would be don't mess with your drawknife trade it for a frosts pushknife if that is what you want. Or sell it and buy a pushknife you should end up with some change. Last thing is if you did put straight handles on a drawknife I doubt it would work well, the handles come off the back of the blade this would mean the edge was 1" in front of the line you were pushing/pulling from and would be unstable and wobbly.

 

[Minotaur]

Thanks for that.

Only reason it was in my plans to re-handle was it is a pain to transport as is.

Will leave alone.

Now have to work out the angle.

One good thing, Frost knife off list. Draw knife part of my second stage bushcraft tool kit i.e. the stuff to carry after the basic three/four items. Not sure were hooked knifes etc fall.

Basically what would you carry for a month in the woods?

 

[robin wood]

Thanks for that.

Only reason it was in my plans to re-handle was it is a pain to transport as is.

Will leave alone.

Now have to work out the angle.

One good thing, Frost knife off list. Draw knife part of my second stage bushcraft tool kit i.e. the stuff to carry after the basic three/four items. Not sure were hooked knifes etc fall.

Basically what would you carry for a month in the woods?

Unless I was going to carry a shave horse too I certainly would not take a drawknife.

 

[Minotaur]

Unless I was going to carry a shave horse too I certainly would not take a drawknife.

The point sort of being if I have the draw knife, making a shave horse is one of the first tasks.