the solitaire
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CGrindahl wrote:
Buddy, that knife is breathtakingly beautiful. WOW! I've not been around so I have no idea whether you've said anything about this before. Is it a hobby or are your doing this professionally? I've been following a fellow in Canada who is building off-grid using hand tools... a cabin, a summer kitchen, sauna and bath house, outdoor loo. Among his followers are a number of crafts people who send him knives, axes and other gear. That said, none of the knives he's featured come close to the you've created. This really is a work of art. Deep respect my friend.
Thank you for the kind words Curtis.
This is the first knife I made in a year. In 2018 I made another five knives. It certainly is a hobby, and one I only spend time on when I have the mindset for it.
With the results I had, people do show an interest and I do make the occasional knife on commission. Mostly to have the joy of experimenting with different types of wood that I could not afford if I would have to pay for every piece out of my own pocket.
So far I made two knives for myself, with this being the third that I intend to keep. I'll repost the very first knive I made to illustrate this narrative a bit.
 DSC_3833 by b j, on Flickr
The joy in making these starts with finding the right wood to go with the blade. There is a story behind each piece of wood, and knowing a thing or two about that helps me find the right shape for it.
I do not use powertools, up until the final buffing. On that first knife I tried buffing and polishing by hand but found the results mediocre. Other then an electric powered buffing wheel, my tools consist of sandpaper, a few boards of wood, home made clamps and a file.
I find inspiration in various cultures and the knives typical to them. The Puukko from Scandinavia, the Yakut knives from Syberia. One of my next projects will most certainly be based on the Seax knives. Those originated in Scandinavia, but were named after the Saxons, who used this knife type a lot in and after the 6th century.
As much as this is a way to improve my skills as a craftsman, it also helps to educate myself in history and culture, learn about wood and trees and the various cultural and historical events surrounding them. The wood in my very first knife is Kauri wood from New Zealand. This particular piece was obtained from Kauri trees that emerged from a bog, where they spent some 38 000 years. With Kauri trees growing as old as 4000 years before the die, this particular piece of wood could be as old as 40 000 years, and with that, is way older then the piece of mammoth bone I used in that most recent knife I made. It also is about the oldest non-petrified, and thus, workable wood in the world.
Yew is also a slow growing wood. It takes about 1000 years for a Yew tree to grow the size needed to make a knife handle out of. In medieval times, Yew was used to make longbows (among other things) which drastically reduced the Yew population throughout Europe, but even long before that Yew was the wood of choice to make bows and spears out of. The oldest dated examples range back 300 000 years.
(Small note: knowing that several wood species are from near extinct tree species, I make certain to obtain my wood from reputable sources, showing CITES papers for the pieces of wood sold, showing that they have not been harvested without consent, or have been harvested before the CITES status for the particular species of tree was given. I would love to try Bois de Rose from Madagascar, but that is nigh impossible to obtain by legal means and I refuse to go through dubious channels to obtain a piece of wood that was harvested without consent)
There is just so much to know and learn about this hobby, but making these knives is quite time consuming and will remain a hobby I only persue when I have the right mindset and a certain amount of time to invest in it.
That said, I plan on making some "fantasy" pieces as well, and one of them will contain a piece of wood scavenged from a true pirate ship, sunk 150 years ago involving a huge explosion and some 4000 barrels of blackpowder. A former colleague knew a carpenter who scavenged some pieces of wood from that ship to make a dining table some 40 years ago. He still had some pieces left and after seeing what I did, he handed one of those nicely dried pieces to me.
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