Last month I made a crook knife to see how useful I'd find it. To test it, I made my first spoon. All this is in the thred Ugly buy mine own: http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=118969
Well, I made some more crook knife blades of different shapes and made a second spoon. Here it is with three crook knives and my Mark Hill main knife. I made shaped handles for the crookies from more curtain poles:
More views of the new spoon:
You can see an internal knot that revealed itself part way through carving. Oh well:
I made this one more carefully and got a better general shape to it all round. I used my first-made crookie (the top one in the below pic - question-mark shape) the most:
I found the question mark knife to be easiest to begin carving the bowl with. The shallow curved knife was okay once I got going but I didn't really like using it for a spoon. It may suit a bigger bowl like a kuksa. I'll persevere with it.
The quarter-circle blade was quite good once the bowl was half-depth but I struggled withit when the bowl was shallow. Having said that, I did like using this knife though. I'm sure I will be using this one quite a bit. The bottom question-mark shaped blade is from my second batch. I won't make a handle for it yet: will keep it as a spare for now.
I struggled with the annealing this second time although the heat treating seems to have gone well. This meant that curving the blade was more tricky. All the blades are keeping a good edge, though, so I'm happy with them.
I used my axe to chop out the blank from green hazel. It was much easier this second time - and I still have all my extremities!
I really enjoyed carving the spoon back and handle with my Mark Hill bushy. I promised Mark is review it but it's been a long time coming - sorry Mark! But the knife is superb. The antler handle is just the perfect shape for my hand and I used every inch of the blade for differing tasks. It performed superbly: I definitely recommend Mark's product!
Back to the spoon: I'm very pleased with this for a second effort. It's fairly well proportioned and more delicate than #1: practice makes perfect, I spose!
So, I have learned that the crook knife is a very useful tool. It makes carving bowls really fast and easy - I made this spoon in 1.5 hours, which really surprised me. I will keep using my home made crookies until I see how often I use tem, and then take the plunge and buy a pukka knife or two when I outgrow these or break one.
A word on the handles: I made then to shape my hand but they are a bit too curvy. I don't know if in not strong enough to grip tightly enough or whether I should make them a bit slimmer and flatter oval in cross section to improve grip. I'll ponder this...
All in all I have really enjoyed the toolmaking and the carving. Making the knives I only burned myself twice (OUCH!) and hit my thumb once (OWWW!). My hands are toughening up now.
Thanks for reading. Hope you found it interesting.
Jan
Well, I made some more crook knife blades of different shapes and made a second spoon. Here it is with three crook knives and my Mark Hill main knife. I made shaped handles for the crookies from more curtain poles:
More views of the new spoon:
You can see an internal knot that revealed itself part way through carving. Oh well:
I made this one more carefully and got a better general shape to it all round. I used my first-made crookie (the top one in the below pic - question-mark shape) the most:
I found the question mark knife to be easiest to begin carving the bowl with. The shallow curved knife was okay once I got going but I didn't really like using it for a spoon. It may suit a bigger bowl like a kuksa. I'll persevere with it.
The quarter-circle blade was quite good once the bowl was half-depth but I struggled withit when the bowl was shallow. Having said that, I did like using this knife though. I'm sure I will be using this one quite a bit. The bottom question-mark shaped blade is from my second batch. I won't make a handle for it yet: will keep it as a spare for now.
I struggled with the annealing this second time although the heat treating seems to have gone well. This meant that curving the blade was more tricky. All the blades are keeping a good edge, though, so I'm happy with them.
I used my axe to chop out the blank from green hazel. It was much easier this second time - and I still have all my extremities!
I really enjoyed carving the spoon back and handle with my Mark Hill bushy. I promised Mark is review it but it's been a long time coming - sorry Mark! But the knife is superb. The antler handle is just the perfect shape for my hand and I used every inch of the blade for differing tasks. It performed superbly: I definitely recommend Mark's product!
Back to the spoon: I'm very pleased with this for a second effort. It's fairly well proportioned and more delicate than #1: practice makes perfect, I spose!
So, I have learned that the crook knife is a very useful tool. It makes carving bowls really fast and easy - I made this spoon in 1.5 hours, which really surprised me. I will keep using my home made crookies until I see how often I use tem, and then take the plunge and buy a pukka knife or two when I outgrow these or break one.
A word on the handles: I made then to shape my hand but they are a bit too curvy. I don't know if in not strong enough to grip tightly enough or whether I should make them a bit slimmer and flatter oval in cross section to improve grip. I'll ponder this...
All in all I have really enjoyed the toolmaking and the carving. Making the knives I only burned myself twice (OUCH!) and hit my thumb once (OWWW!). My hands are toughening up now.
Thanks for reading. Hope you found it interesting.
Jan
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