Every thing new.

New project, new technique, new tools, new setup.

I have been tweeting about this project time to time but I thought I will write about it also in here.

If you remember, I have made two  three-finger size blades about April this year. One was Makiri neck knife and other one was Puukko. Since then, I have been planing on finishing that small puukko in to neck knife with usual style. But as soon as I start working on it, I kept loosing the motivation because none of the design ideas seem right.

Small puukko blade is the one on bottom.

Then recently, I have watched a Finnish movie call "Härmä". The movie shows so many of amazing Finnish Knives and all of them were very inspiring. But among those, there was one knife attracted me very much as a base design for this small blade. So pulled out my "Idea Book" and start drawing several options.

Few shots of my "Idea Book" which I carry all the time.

While at drawing on the paper, suddenly an idea hit me. "Wrong direction. not a neck knife, but this should be a three-finger belt knife!". And not only usual dangler puukko, but traditional style whole set belt kit. The traditional Finnish / Lappish style belt kit was something I have been wanted to have as my Forest waking kit. So if I managed to make this, it will be perfect!


Now the direction and design idea are set, get started with actual making.
Starting with bolster and pommel contraction. Commonly, the brass is the choice of material here, but I am not much fun of brass, chose copper instead.

parts are ready to be soldered and fit in.

Got good fitting.

I decided to stack birch bark between bolster and pommel. Once the handle is constructed, need to work on decorating handle. Decoration is done using metal chisel. I have been trying out Japanese style metal chiseling a bit, so I do have the needed chisels. but I have no experience doing Finnish style. In fact, I have only seen this done once, 10 second demo by Theo Eichorn. So I need to figure out by practicing.... and alot.

part of a pile of practice pieces.... 

it is easier than the Japanese style, but more difficult to get consistent cut. The real thing, I get only one go. will spend enough time on this..

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Moving on to the sheath making. this also require whole nine yard of new techniques. Not only techniques but also new tools.

it is the part of decorating the sheath and this requires kind of gold smith type of set up. First I have stated with the tools I have, but soon realized that those are inadequate.
First, I need proper small anvil for making copper plate.

So, came up with this idea, buried a 1.5kg hammer in to large log. for tryout, I have pounded 1.2mm thickness copper in to 0.5mm thickness.

This worked amazingly well, way much better than cheap casted anvil. It is so good that I think it would work nicely for small knife projects as well.

Now I got the copper plate, so start cutting it out.... but again, I needed new sets of tools.

Got jewelry maker's saw, needle files and made new work bench attachment. This set up made me possible to do what I wanted to do.

It is nerve wracking work, but very satisfying on the end..