My new crooked knife

Crooked knives can be used to make many practical and necessary every day objects: birch bark canoes, paddles, bows and arrows, snow shoes, axe handles...the list was endless for the native people of the Woodlands. I think it's a shame that modern buscrafters don't use the Mocautogan (it's Native name) vey much at all. It is such a practical tool. Holding it with the palm of the hand up, and pulling towards you, takes some getting use to, but once mastered it is a very versatile tool.

I have made various models of crooked knives, or Mocautogan, over the past few years and this is my latest variation on the theme.

This one is a left handed tool, it has a very hard and dense Walnut handle, shaped to my hand. The blade is 4" long, with a slight curve for most of the length, with the curve increasing towards the tip. The blade is fixed to the handle with a couple of small screws, but that was more for convenience than necessity. I have cast the pewter ferrule directly onto the handle and this holds the blade very securely.

This is only the second time I have cast a pewter ferrule on a knife, and it was a little more complicated and tricky than the first one, but I think it was well worth it and that it looks very nice.

It needs some more sanding with fine wet & dry paper, but I have run out at the moment!

Cold steel Trail Tomahawk

I have read some good things about the Cold Steel Trail Tomahawk in various places on the net, so I have bought myself one.

But...I don't like the cheap black paint, or whatever they used on the handle, or the screw hole on the side of the head, so I am going to mod it a bit!

First steps: I removed the black paint, scrapped the handle and welded the hole up! Better already.

I did a bit of filling around all the edges to soften them a little bit, particularly around the eye, where those sharp edges were damaging the handle.






This is going to be an on-going project. The mods I want are: filework on the head, modify the handle a bit, minimal shortening on the ends of the handle a to remove the lathe marks. Some pewter decorations, and darkening the wood as well, finally age it a bit.

Stay tuned!

18th Century knife

Well, my interpretation of an 18th Century belt knife. I used a stag crown handle, hollowed out to accept the tang, which is pinned into place with a steel rivet.

This is the first time I used a bolster on one of my knife. I used lead free pewter to form the bolster and to fix the blade into the horn handle. The bolster has a decorative pattern inlayed into the horn

Overall, the knife is 10" long with a 5" long, hand filed triangular section blade, 3/4" wide. I couldn't resist the temptation to decorate the back of the blade with a simple file work pattern!

The blade is 01 tool steel and I am going to etch it and "age" the handle and pewter bolster a bit. The sheath is not yet made, but is going to be a very simple belt sheath that can slipped into the belt and held in place with a leather cord.

Turkey Jerky!!

I made my first bunch of jerky yesterday. This particular recipe called for turkey meat instead of beef. I found it in a book and just had to try it.

Use some turkey breast, cut it in thin strips across the grain, marinate the meat for 2 to 4 hours in 1/2 cup soy sauce, 1/2 cup of Worcester sauce and 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar.

After that, just lay the strips across an oven rack overnight at 150 degrees farenheit, about 60 centigrade. Mine was in the oven for about 9 hours.

The only problem is that it got eaten faster than it got made!

It's raining!

Much as I like the warm sunshine and temperature we've had, I am glad to see the rain today. Nature around us needed it, I hope it's going to last long enough to make a difference. It will also, hopefully, wash the pollen out of the air and relieve the hayfever my daughter has suffered from in the past few weeks.




Rain Rain Rain

Rain Rain Rain,
Up above from the skies
Youu come,
As drops of joy
As drops of sorrow
As a shower of blessing from the heavens.


Rain Rain Rain,
Pitter patter pitter patter
on the window panes,
thunder and lightning fill up the skies
creating an orchestral symphony.

Rain Rain Rain,
With wind, sun and clouds,
seven colors you bring together
and joy in our hearts.

Rain Rain Rain
A miracle to a drought
A curse when in glut,
tiny silver crystals trickles from up above.

Anook Lokkur

I think I'll take it as a compliment!

Back in May 2008, I made a very nice bowie knife, using a handforged blade made by a member on British Blades Forum, Lord Farquar. I showed it at the time on BCUK. I later sold the knife to a member on BCUK, Big Mark, James Noble, who runs the website James Noble Knives

Obviously Mr Noble liked my knife enough to get some copies made, and although they are not on sale yet on his website, there are some very nice pictures of the copies on his blog Owning your own wood

I'd like to say thanks to Mr Noble for paying me the compliment of copying my work and showing the copies on his blog.

Mr Noble has developed an enviable international reputation and is very well known as a knife maker and seller on numerous knifeforums, as well as bushcraft forums, for his abilities to discover good designs and incorporating them in his own portfolio of knives and leather work for sale.

So although many might disagree with me, I think I'll take this as a great compliment in my abilities to produce good knife designs.

This first photo is my original design.




This is a photo borrowed from Own your own wood, Mr Noble's blog.



Mr Noble, if you object to my posting your photo on my blog, I'll be happy to remove it forthwith, please just leave a comment for me regarding your objection. Thanks

Some better pictures

I borrowed a couple of pictures from Sticks65, with his permission of course. They show the knife much better than mine do. Note to myself: must learn to take better pictures...

Have a look at his blog, for more and better pictures. Also on Bushcraftusa, where you can see/read a review of the knife, and read about an interesting and useful fire lighting technique, The One Stick Fire. The thread is in General Discussions.

Another friction folder

I finished the friction folder mentioned in a previous post. This one has light coloured cow horn handle scales. I am pleased how beautifuy the horn came out, a bit smelly to work with but well worth the effort. Worth wearing a dust mask too and do the sanding outside if at all possible!

It's the first time I have made use of cow horn on my folding knives and I think there will be more in the future. the blade I etched with my mixture of vinegar and garlic flakes, I like this technique, I think it produced some very nice patterns on the blade which contribute well with the overall look of the knife.





It will be on it's way to it's new owner tomorrow.

Leather cover and bag for a small axe

I have had this lovely, little light axe for a while now and only got around to making a proper cover for it. I thought it would be useful to have a small bag attached to it, so that I would be able to carry a few things such as a sharpener and also a small fire making kit, sewing kit, maybe a small knife too.

So I made this welted, short fringed bag inthe mountain man style I like. I did not follow any particular patterns, simply made it in the style I like. There is a extra small inside pocket on the back. The bag is about 8" wide X 6" high. The leather is a soft water buffalo skin. There were a couple of holes in the skin and I used those as a feature, filling one with a small piece of what looks like snake skin.

It is all handsewn, with waxed linen thread, I hand forged the rings out of some mild steel and the buckle I used is a small square brass one a friend gave me.

Early morning walk & revange of the pigeons!

I went for an early-ish walk with my dog, (5.45am) today, to take advantage of the cooler part of the day, and also because there are rarely anybody out dow on the marsh at this time. We have an young English Bull Terrier and he can be a bit of a pain with other people, not in a nasty way but he is very exhuberent!

Anyway, the walk started well, quiet, cool and very pleasant. We did not get far from the house, about 1/2 mile, when we have to cross a railway line. There is a little old railway crossing cottage where an old lady lives, and the said lady likes to feed the foxes and the birds. There are always lots of pigeons down there, and they are fairly used to people and don't spook too readily. Except today...

When said dog and I went past under the power line where they were perched, they decided they didn't like the look of us, and exploded into flight, all 30 or 40 of them! The 3 cables of the high power line started to dance wildly and produced a very respectable firework display, along with some pretty spectacular explosions!

I can tell you I didn't stay long under the lines!! We then carried on our enjoyable walk without further trouble.

On return, I found a guy in a van looking at the lines.. The whole electric network in the area was down....

We shouldn't persecute animals. They will get their own back eventually!