Lauri #1: Oak, coins and a lunchbox.

I finished my first handle for one of the Lauri blades this week. I used one of the smallest blades and made a slim handle for it. I wanted to use silver and red spacers to achieve a nice contrast, and looked around to find what I could use. I ended up with two norwegian coins of 1 kroner (which already have a hole in the middle), and red plastic that I got from an old red lunchbox that had been lying around. Here is the result.

A shot comparing it to my opinel #8. It shows how small and slender this knife is. It is a nice whittling blade.

I am quite pleased with it, but there are a couple of things I want to do differently (read: better) on the next one. One important thing is to polish and sand off the pen-marks on the bolster before gluing the knife together. Another thing is that I want to warm up the epoxy a bit, so that it is easier to fill up the whole slot for the tang. I am not sure if I succeeded in that with this one, and therefore I kind of doubt that it`ll take a lot of abuse in the long run. But I started these 5 blades to learn, and I have learned a lot on #1, so I am a happy chap!

Knife blades

I received a package from Brisa in Finland the other day. It contained 5 knife blades. They are all carbon blades made by Lauri. I got three different blades to practise making handles with and these are perfect for the job. They are cheap (and that means the finish is not so great) but the  quality is fine. 

As you can see the blades I bought are rather small. Smaller than I anticipated, to be honest. But I believe they`ll make some nice little carving blades. This afternoon is spent with drawing up some designs and starting assembly of the first one. 

Gift

This little kuksa is a gift for a friend. She likes whisky and I think she also appreciates treen. I thought a kuksa and a bottle of something good would make her happy. The wood is nice and dark around the base. I do not know why that is, but I like it.

I tapered the rim for drinking-comfort.

I can never refuse a photo with a knife.

Nice dark colour on the base.

It is yet again in sycamore. I got my hands on two logs quite a while back, and they seem to have no end! I recently found some beech and rhodondendron to carve though, and I`ll start on it even if I still have a lot of sycamore left. I`ll enjoy the change. I have never carved rhodondendron before but I have heard it makes nice spoons. (For those that worry: the toxins in rhodondendron are mainly located in the leaves. The wood is quite safe, especially after sealing with oil).

 Meanwhile, I am awaiting a package from Finland. Not too long ago I ordered some knifeblades from Brisa. I wanted to have a go at making some handles for blades other than Mora, and I hope that I can get some practice with the blades I ordered before I go on and handle the knife I got for christmas. It is something I am excited about.

Sycamore kuksa

With the lessons from my previous post fresh in my mind I finished another sycamore kuksa today. It has thin walls, and I`ll dry it long and slowly. Yet again, however, I may have not taken enough of the inner growth rings away in order to gain some depth. I guess it is my version of "living on the edge".  I think this one is less good than the one I carved last week, but overall I am pleased.  Kuksas are cool. 

The knot you can see in the handle was a right bugger! Wild grain directions and tough as a nail. Eventually I opted to keep the handle a bit thicker than I had planned to avoid ruining my knife as well as the workpiece itself. 

Today Robin Wood published pictures on his blog of his new batch of spoon knives being produced. I`ve been wanting a lefty to help me hollow these cups out better, and want one of his. Soon! (I hope).

Lessons learned...

In the beginning of December '13 I made this cup, and after I managed to dry it for a week or so I thought: "I guess it will not crack, I can take it into use now", and after sealing it with the milk treatment that is what I did. For a month and a half it seemed to hold up well. Untill I filled it up with coffee this morning, and disaster struck! A large crack opened up, and I cringed at seeing my work become useless within three seconds. 

I guess something like this was needed to teach me a few lessons. 

1. Kuksas need to be slowly dried before being taken into use. No exceptions.
2. Thinner walls are better. (This is something I have been working on, for aesthetic reasons, drinking comfort and now also cracking risk.)
3. Remove a lot of the inner growth rings to relieve the wood of more stress. (In this cup I removed the pith, but that was about it. A decision I made to make a cup with a large volume from the wood I had available.)

While it is no fun to see your own work fail, it is a great way to see what works and what does not. On to progression and better Kuksas now!

Sycamore kuksa.

Over the last few days I carved this kuksa from  half of a log of sycamore. I love these cups and would like to make them more often. I am currently waiting for the next batch of Robin Wood spoon knives to get a lefty to accompany my mora 164. With a lefty and a righty it will be easier to carve the bowl well. Here are some pictures of the kuksa.

In  the pictures it is accompanied  by a small shrinkpot I made from applewood. I have seen some wonderful shrinkpots by various makers over the last few weeks, so I feel inspired to make more of these as well. My to-do list is ever growing.

A closer look at sharp.

A sharp knife that leaves a smooth surface after a cut is essential for carving. I have been having a look at some of my edges with 40x magnification to get a better understanding of the meaning of "sharp", and thought I`d share my findings. 

Lets begin with the edge of my Victorinox Huntsman. This knife is in my pocket/backpack everyday and is put to regular use. It passes my paper-test, but it is not shaving sharp at the moment. The paper-test for me is as follows: Does the knife smoothly slices through a standard sheet of A4 paper that is losely held at the corner? If the answer is no, then I consider the knife blunt. I have to say I was surprised to see the state of this edge: 

Victorinox huntsman

Sections of the edge are quite ragged, and there are grooves and nicks in the bevel. Having seen this I have to say that it cuts better than I should have expected by the looks of it, but perhaps it is more like sawing then cutting at some places. Compared to my Opinel #8 it is quite a mess.   

Opinel #8

Here is an image of the edge of my Opinel at 40x magnification. I once reset the secondary bevel of this blade to 17 degrees, and have since then only maintained it with a strop. I am a little more careful with this edge than with the Victorinox one (i.e. I do not scrape with it and do not cut where there is a high risk of hitting metal/stone etc) but I have certainly not shied away from using it. I am very fond of the friendly appearance of the Opinel and therefore I often have it on me. It regularly cuts boxes, fruits and vegs, wood, tape, rope and all other things one cuts on a daily basis. I`ve had it for more than two years now, and am seriously impressed with how it keeps up! Especially for the price. Anyhow, as you can probably guess from the image, this blade is seriously sharp. It shaves with ease and currently puts my SAK to shame.

I am a bit reluctant to show the next one, as it shows what a poor job I have done in sharpening the EKA folder. The Lansky-kit I have has 5 different grids, and to reprofile this blade I started on the coarsest one. Then either in the step from coarsest to the next, or the step after that, I have not been thorough enough in grinding out the grooves of the previous stone. This results in this bevel that is relatively smooth, but ploughed through with deep grooves left by one of the coarser stones. At the edge this produces the effect of tiny saw-teeth. The knife will cut well, and feel sharp, but it will not last long and it most certainly is not a pretty sight to me. Needless to say I want to redo this one soon. 

EKA swede 10

On to two of my carving knives. First I`ll show the edge of one of my Mora 120s, because it has something interesting going on. If you look at the bevel here, you see that toward the edge it gets smoother and the angle of lightreflection changes. This is due to the fact that the bevel is slightly rounded towards the edge. This rounding is caused by my stropping the blade a lot. Initially it is not really a problem, but from time to time a rounded edge has to be set straight again on the stones, as I will do with this one. I will also spend more time on the 800 grid waterstone before moving on to 2000 and 5000. This is to get rid of the same problem I described with the EKA.

Mora 120

 The last one I  have here is the best example of sharp I had to put under the microscope. It is my Mora 711 blade that is my main carver. I use this knife all the time and keep it in good shape. There is some slight evidence of rounding, but this is far from causing a problem on this knife. The bevel is smooth and the only grooves you see are caused by the fines stone I own.

Rehandled Mora 711

 Of course sharpness of a blade is also defined by other factors like Edge Geometry and material, and not only how the bevels look. It is, however, the main factor for the sharpness of all edges. I will now not go into edge geometry, or the fact that for some cutting tasks a coarser edge is actually better. Looking at some edges in such detail increased my understanding of sharpening, and it also showed me that some of my blades need a bit of attention soon! If you want to understand your own knives better, have a look at the edge in detail. Using a microscope to achieve 40x magnification is fun, but with a small lens like this one you can already see all you need to see.