Frosts of Mora famine

[bowman]

Spoke to Axminster today - they have been out of stock of Frosts crook knives for some time but expect delivery within days. I believe other suppliers are also experiencing high demand, which can only mean one of two things:
Either a lot of people are making the leap from armchair enthusiast to novice bushcrafter, which is good, or the domestic cutlery industry is taking radical and secretive steps to prevent the likes of you and I from making our own spoons.
I have several blanked out spoons just gagging to be crook knifed - I have resisted the temptaion to wave them at my router table (which would defeat the object entirely) and will wait patiently for my £10 worth of curved steel joy to arrive. I dare say I will even post the pitiful results on here for the purposes of amusement.

Bowman

 

[OldJimbo]

The spoon gouge is a really neat tool once properly sharpened, and of course is the proper tool for such jobs. You might want to check the horse tack dealers for a hoof knife, though and try it. Again sharpening is even more of a pain - but it'll do lots of jobs well, even spoons. I find the narrow bladed version to be best - but they come in all sorts of shapes, even double edged for roughing out.

 

[Bardster]

The other thing you might want to do is speak to Andrew at outdoorcode - he has some lovely spoonknives from Svante Djarv. Bit more expensive but ohhh so much better

 

[Biddlesby]

Just bought one from there - seems I got the last of the stock.

 

[weekend_warrior]

Mine arrived from them yesterday

 

[Kiamyr]

Which crooked knife did you get?

 

[weekend_warrior]

I got this one...

Crook Knife

 

[capacious]

I got one fro them for christmas, so they can't been out of stock for very long.

 

[Biddlesby]

Seems like they have been lying to you if you are referring to the same product. I also got the Sloyd Single Edge Hook Knife.

 

[Rob]

I am not aware of any problems at the factory, Frosts seem to be a lot better these days at making sure that there are always some on the shelves.

A lot of the companies will have ordered a load in the run up to Christmas and will be waiting for their first 2006 delivery.

 

[bowman]

They have removed the 'Currently out of stock' note from the website today.
I will soon possess my lovely new tool.

Bowman

 

[jamesdevine]

Frosts are a wonderful company. For my wives birthday last year I wanted to add something bushcrafty to her pressie as we were heading away for her first camping trip. I spotted in an old cataloge they had a pink handled sheath knife and I could not find one fore sale anywhere on the net so I contacted them personally.

I got a reply from one of the customer service team saying that they were no longer in productions but she had spoken to the stores manager and after discovering that there might be one or two still knocking about she went in search for it herself. She found two one it was decided to be kept by the company the other was promtly send of too me.

What is most remarkable about this story is that it was sent priority post for free. No charge wants so ever. Now there is a company that feels the need to go the extra mile and they get a huge thumbs up from me. Frosts :You_Rock_

James

 

[capacious]

That's a great story. There arn't enough companies, especially big ones, that are like that anymore. Customer service seems to have gone out of the window. It is refreshing when something like that happens - and makes you want to buy more from them in the future. If only all companies were the same.

 

[bushtuckerman]

Has anyone thought about making their own? there's loads of know-how on here and someone is bound to help. I made one on a friend's forge and it pretty much works, nothing proffessional but it does the job, the main difficulty is sharpening a bumpy blade (due to the metal getting quite hot i think), but that's little work really.

I've made a few things beforevjust for fun really, but this time it was nice to know that something i needed i could make. My approach is generally to hit it until it's the right shape. My friend though knows more about the technicalities. i used an old drill bit for the steel, which i shaped, then heated it yellow hot (i overdid it a bit here i think) and left it to cool slowly in the fire overnight. As i gather, this was to neutralise the temper so that i could reheat it and temper it to the hardness i wanted (this was pure guess-work at this stage as to what this might be), i dipped the edge first in an attempt to make that the harder part - i have no idea whether this worked or not - to give the whole blade strength without being too brittle.

The handle is ash. I thought about carving the turned handle into an oval profile to give a better fit, but decided against this as there seemed little point for such a small knife, instead grip is given by a beeswax finish which i applied when it was on the lathe, and i don't really use it enough to worry about blisters.

All that aside mora knives are very trustworthy and I was considering getting my own crooked knife from them myself. Instead i have more of a novelty but for my purposes it's fine.

-ian

i'd post a picture of it if i could work out how...