Since I seem to be getting back into wood carving recently, I have made the first 4 of a set of wood carving knives. Truly handmade the handles are handcarved and only lightly sanded with 400 grade, so you can see and feel the carving cuts on the wood. I like the patterns on the wood and it's make it less slippery too. All the handles are 6 1/2" long
The blades are interesting too. The two longest, all purpose knives, are 1 1/2" long, with the widths of the blades about 1/2". The two smaller, Detail knives, are 1 1/8" long, with blade widths of just over 1/4". The next ones in the series will be smaller detail blade about 3/4" long. To make the blades I have used floor scrapper blade steel. I don't know what the steel is but I believe its the same as Stanley blades are made of. About 0.8mm thick, it's tough metal, I tried to break one, trying to replicate the stress they would be under when in normal use as carving tools, without success.
It's quite tricky, but necessary, to keep the metal cool at all times as they are already hardened/tempered.
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| 1 1/2" curved blade. Possibly Laburnum beautifully patterned, heavy and hard to carve |
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1 1/2" straight all purpose. The handle is Yew |
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| 1 1/8" detail curved blade. The handle is Plum wood, gorgeous, cuts beautifully. Quite light and fairly hard |
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| 1 1/8" curved blade, a knife to use for slicing cuts. Yew handle. 6 sided handle, hand carved |
I'll post pictures when I make the next smaller ones.
Those are great tools! Coming to think of it, I have some blades waiting to be mounted myself. I like the sleek lines of the handles especially well!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, whatever became of the wood spirit handled carving knife project?;-)
I think that may have got lost in the midst of : so manyt things to do, so little time...:-)
DeleteKnives loks pretty good, but for the next time when you grind blade, make a flat grind, don't make a microbevel. Microbevel don't carv so well like flat grind blade!
ReplyDelete