What would you guys like to see in a build along?

[Mr. Woolery]

I’m looking forward to seeing your crooked knife!  I make a couple versions because I carve wooden spoons. It became a fun push-pull thing for a few years. My spoons would not be quite what I wanted, so I’d change the knives, get past the new learning curve of new tools, decide I needed something different, and the cycle continues. My results are odd to some carvers, but my spoons work.

If I were to pick one knife I want to see from another maker (well, really, I want to see them all, but you know what I mean) I’d want to see either a crooked knife/hook knife or else a paring knife. Both are easy to do at a basic level, but the details show whether the maker knows how to use the knife.

Eager anticipation over here!

Patrick

[Handforged]

I’m looking forward to seeing your crooked knife!  I make a couple versions because I carve wooden spoons. It became a fun push-pull thing for a few years. My spoons would not be quite what I wanted, so I’d change the knives, get past the new learning curve of new tools, decide I needed something different, and the cycle continues. My results are odd to some carvers, but my spoons work.

If I were to pick one knife I want to see from another maker (well, really, I want to see them all, but you know what I mean) I’d want to see either a crooked knife/hook knife or else a paring knife. Both are easy to do at a basic level, but the details show whether the maker knows how to use the knife.

Eager anticipation over here!

Patrick

Well, I had planned to do something really simple but after that comment I might have to kick it up a notch. HA!  Even better I may make a couple, one very traditional, simple and one more in line with what I would do for a customer...

[Mr. Woolery]

The real details I'm talking about have a lot more to do with edge geometry and bevel orientation than with fit and finish.  When you see a guy like Tom Lafortune carving a totem pole, his knives look fairly primitive.  But the edges and the curves at the tip tell the story of decades of learning how to use these tools right.  I'd love to spend a couple of hours playing with his tools and making notes.  I wouldn't learn a thing about fit and finish, but I would learn the important lessons of how to make a tool that a master carver is happy using. 

From the pictures you've posted, your skills and experience are more developed than mine.  I wasn't trying to challenge you, only expressing excitement that you are going to show your take on a tool that I have worked to refine and improve for myself.  The part that matters to me is the part that does the work, not the part that sells to the folks who don't actually know how to evaluate a tool (that's not an insult - someone who is very good with a butcher knife can evaluate the butcher knife very well, but likely cannot evaluate a wood carving tool - they are specialized in function).

-Patrick

[Handforged]

The real details I'm talking about have a lot more to do with edge geometry and bevel orientation than with fit and finish.  When you see a guy like Tom Lafortune carving a totem pole, his knives look fairly primitive.  But the edges and the curves at the tip tell the story of decades of learning how to use these tools right.  I'd love to spend a couple of hours playing with his tools and making notes.  I wouldn't learn a thing about fit and finish, but I would learn the important lessons of how to make a tool that a master carver is happy using. 

From the pictures you've posted, your skills and experience are more developed than mine.  I wasn't trying to challenge you, only expressing excitement that you are going to show your take on a tool that I have worked to refine and improve for myself.  The part that matters to me is the part that does the work, not the part that sells to the folks who don't actually know how to evaluate a tool (that's not an insult - someone who is very good with a butcher knife can evaluate the butcher knife very well, but likely cannot evaluate a wood carving tool - they are specialized in function).

-Patrick

I was just poking at you a little. I do a good many primitives as well as highly evolved types of cutting tools. To me, no matter that I am doing, the steps involved in producing the tool are always the same. For the most part the only difference is the level of finish. I think I mentioned in another thread that sometimes I have to go back after the fact and put the tool marks and look back into it.

I think for this I'll do one that is a hemp wrapped antler handle and the other a more refined carved handle version. I have used cooked knives for years, just not lately. I'll post some pictures of my personal knife in there somewhere for reference. It has a permanent place in my woods bag.

[Mr. Woolery]

I hate to derail the conversation, but here are the spoon carving tools I use most nowadays, as well as a few of the spoons I use when I eat.

The small hook and the small sloyd knife were forged from 1/4" (aprox) garage door spring.  The kind in most home garages.  The others came from the 3/8" spring material from the large 7" diameter springs that are on the big doors. 

-Patrick

[Mr. Woolery]

I tend to leave a forged surface where it won't interfere with function.  I love the brut de forge look. 

I'd love to see your personal hook knife!  Whenever I get together with other spoon carvers (which happens very seldom, I want to look at their spoons, then I want to look at their knives.  There is so much to learn from how people use the tool, but first you have to see the tool they are using.  (If the spoons are bad spoons, I don't really have anything to learn, but if they are nice spoons, I want to see what the tools were and then we can talk technique.)

I'm really looking forward to it!  Thank you.

-Patrick

[Handforged]

I wish I was a better carver. I had professional native woodcarver and basket weaver (I forget which tribe) contact me years ago about making Mocataugen for him. He sent me a very crude knife that he had made as an example. I think I forged 4 for him that were different concave shapes. One was all but straight with a slight bend to the blade for finishing larger bowls and working weaving slats.  He teaches classes and those students ordered a good many of those tools for a few seasons and then like things do, it just sort of dwindled out.  As I mentioned before there was a pull for them a few years ago but that resurgence seems to have died out. At least for me it has. That is the only reference I have for them.

  I tried to make a Kuksa once upon a time and gave up on it after about a week. I believe it's still in the shop somewhere. A couple weeks later I got another nice burl and made myself one with the power tools and liked that MUCH BETTER! HA!  I finished it up with the Mocataugen but the vast majority of it was shaped via power tool. So my reference in their use is fairly low unfortunately.

[Mr. Woolery]

Kuksas (fun trivia: old woodcraft books generally called them "noggins") are a lot of work to carve.  I have started several and never finished one.  I make spoons.  They just suit me.  I will sit and carve a spoon while my youngest plays at the park.  In between classes (back to school in my 40s), I would sometimes just bring my carving bucket and make a spoon while I waited for the next class to begin.  There's nothing else I can think of where I can have several razor sharp blades out in the open and have moms approach me to ask questions, even bringing kids over to see what I'm doing.  Anything else I could do with knives, other than carving, is likely to get me a visit from a polite gentleman with a badge. 

And I think the way to get to be a good carver is by having an obsessive need to carve.  Like being a good smith starts with having a need within you to forge metal.  You only get good at anything by doing and you only do if you have it in you to really want or need to do. 

-Patrick

[Handforged]

Ok does everyone have their stuff together for a crooked knife build? I may start on it this afternoon and post some pictures. I'll start another thread to get it going. If this thread allowed it I had thought about raffling them off and donating the money to the website but I don't think we can do that here.  As it is I'll likely give them away or trade them to someone who would like them.  So you guys get your materials together and lets get started!