second mocotaugan

[forginhill]

I tried another mocotaugan. I wanted one with only a slightly curved blade. I also wanted to try a different handle configuration. I like how this one feels, better than the first one. For the tang I carved a slotted bed for it and then sealed it in with epoxy before giving it a wrap. The blade is file steel, the handle is mesquite.

 

[crosslandkelly]

Nice.

 

[Muddypaws]

That's a lovely knife!

 

[Janne]

Looks fantastic! Good choice of wood!

 

[Robson Valley]

Those look absolutely useful. It's interesting how different the design is
when compared with the crooked knives of the Pacific Northwest.

 

[Janne]

Would antler have also been used for the handle?

 

[Robson Valley]

Forginhill's knives could sit in any museum or gallery collection
as good examples and nobody would be the wiser.

I have seen color pictures of fewer than 100 Mocotaugan-style crooked knives.
Wood +/- paints, antlers of several sorts were used as well.
The slotted bed for the tang is the classic shape, usually with a tab of wood on top.

By contrast, the Mocotaugan blades designed for and sold by the Hudson's Bay Company
are no real match for the hand-crafted blades. HBC never took the hint. I have a modern one,
looks the same as they did in 1780.

 

[Mesquite]

Very nice work

 

[Joe tahkahikew]

It sure does look good.
How did you decide to mount the blade on the outside of the wood? Most of ours - hand made like yours have the blade sat inside the handle.

Where or what did you use for the blade. I have used old metal file.

I assume you have no problems with the blade coming off anyways

 

[Janne]

This design did not pass the test of time, I guess it is an early relic before they learned to insert the tang into the handle.

The Inuit knife design is a similar relic. Maybe survives in the form of those herb choppers?

 

[Robson Valley]

Of the first 50(?) Mocotaugan knives I've looked at, the ones which show the hafting technique, are _all_ done like that.
As I began to haft all of my own crooked knives like centuries of Pacific Northwest carving tools, I have done the same.
I am not easy on tools. Nothing has ever worked loose. The point is that it works and works very well, despite the critics.
Mind you, I have not made more than 15 or 16 knives this way. 6 more are on the bench.

Look at finished crooked knives from North Bay Forge, Kestrel Tool and Caribou Blades. All like that today.

Consider how all of these knives are used = palm up, fist grip, pull strokes towards the carver.
Not what you might have been accustomed to doing.
Yeah, I get hit every day. Used to get cut and wreck shirts. It happens.
Now I have a fantastic canvas apron that sure seems hack-proof!
Fine work is not so bad but the rough shaping has some risks even after the adze work is done.

 

[Janne]

Tradition sometimes hinder progress.
Would be fun to try one of those knives.

There is in fact a very specialized pro butcher knife with a handle shape like that.

I guess once you work within the limit of the tool it works well.

Nobody was using those half inch thick things called a 'bushcraft knife' when 90% of the population lived in and with nature. They did well with what the centuries of trial and error had taught them.

 

[Robson Valley]

Me too. I'd like to carve a snowshoe frame from green ash or fresh birch with one of Forginhill's knives.
Those things are real classics.

One advantage with starting with a file for a DIY Mocotaugan blade is that the file already has a tang!
How convenient! The HBC blades from Sheffield do not have such tangs.
One step in the native knife build is to bend over the terminal 1/4" of the pointy tang at 90*.
This fits into a wee hole in the handle, then the wooden cap, then the whipping.

I used #18 nylon cord for all the whipping. Gloves on and pull as hard as possible.
Then slather the whole thing with carpenter's glue.

The adze blades from Kestrel are 3/16 to 1/4" thick. They are dry surface hafted.
When you carve the blade seat, use a cabinet scraper to make the seat ever so slightly concave,
like a wooden chair seat. The whipping is #18 tarred nylon seine cord (for repairing ocean salmon nets.)
You have to make the whipping so tight that the blade actually deforms to the seat.
No, it isn't going anywhere.

 

[forginhill]

Interesting thoughts....I'm not claiming total historical accuracy here. Most of the time I see traditional tools and then just make one following my own intuition with the intended use in mind. I like the idea of the blade being down on the side of the handle like I have it because it increases cutting access especially with wider pieces like a canoe paddle surface. I am totally confident in the strength because of the epoxy. I don't claim this is the best configuration of the tool. I'm exploring and learning.

Joe tahkahikew, yes, I used old file steel. I'm very interested in how you make this tool.

Janne, totally agree with your comment about the beastly "buschcraft knives" that seem popular. I spent the first half of my life with indigenous people and they used thin trade kitchen knives. They would have had no use for the thick blades popular today.

 

[Fraxinus]

Really nice work Forginhill yet another item on my want to make list, that may happen, if we get to move next year.

Rob

 

[Janne]

I guess they would have used wet sinew or hide in the old days?
Stretches well and pliable when wet, shrinks and hardens when dry.

 

[forginhill]

I'm sure, Janne. And I've heard one bushcrafter craftsman say that the blades were intended to be removable in case of breakage or whatever. I don't feel compelled to follow that because I don't do that with my regular knives. Now when you see the amazing traditionally carved handles on some of the relics, I might want to be able to reuse them...