New sheath for a knife I made earlier this year

It has been a while coming, and it drove me mad somehow. That knife was sitting on the bench and I just could not make up my mind how to complete it. That handle is made of a special reindeer antler from a very special place. The blade is, compared to other knives I have made, not so special. I took a Roselli Wootz UHC blade with a claimed carbon content of 1,8% or so and a claimed Rockwell hardness of 64-66 HRC (which is a more realistic and absolutely great 62HRC in fact). It´s an industrial made blade that comes in relatively cheap. You do not get Wootz blades for 70 €, period. It has a  short tang (about 85mm long), that, when processed in the right way ist way strong enough. I polished the blade a bit and etched it as I do with my damascus blades, and a beautiful pattern showed. To you owners of Roselli knives and blades, this might be a hack you might want to try... for that knife is way better than it looks. I am not one for lookers alone, but hey, no harm done, innit? :-)

When you put a blade with a short tang into a handle, I found several things to be crucial and always try to act accordingly. First you have to keep in mind what makes a short-tang knife fail in hard use. The tang is a kind of lever. If you e.g. baton the knife through hard knotted wood, you put a great force onto the other side of that lever. To prolong the crucuial end of this lever, you have several options. First, there should be a coherent flow of force vectors. This can be achieved by choosing a material that is dense and non-porous. For instance, if you want a stag antler handle, you wat to be very sure that there is little to no marrow in the middle to give that lever (the tang) a firm base to "move" against. If the material at hand is porous, you have to drill that away, fill the "tube" you have made that way with a strong epoxy (look on the package) or liquid metal, let it dry, and drill the hole for the tang with as little tolerances as possible. You might even want to add some reinforcements, such as glass strands or even carbonfibre or metal strands into the hole along the direction of stress. Another method would be to add a bolster cup made from copper or bronze (you can get those from your local plumber´s shop). You could also make a mock full tang out of aluminium or steel and fit the short tang into that, rivet it into the aluminium tang and fit scales to that mock tang. Or you could just use a decent material in the first... :-), that said, this piece of reindeer antler had no marrow whatsoever, and I carefully filed out the tang hole to fit the tang really closely. In fact, since the antler tends always to compress a little, I filed it out somewhat smaller than needed and then softened the antler a bit internally by rinsing with a bit of water, then tapping on the butt of the handle with light blows of a peen hammer. Then I let the handle dry out completely separately from the blade and glued it on with a strong dual component glue. The bolster I made from bronze sheet.

Of course you have to keep in mind that a knife can be but a very poor excuse for a prybar and might snap in abuse. I am pretty confident with my one-of-a-kind-knives, which I can test very thoroughly, but industrial making is a whole different matter.

That said, the knife lay on the bench, and I tested it from time to time and found it a real good cutter and a nice carry. The blade, measuring in at a really agreeable and dexterous length of 85 mm bites like your little sister and keeps an edge exrtraordinarily well, and I really love it, of course. Now the knife should be used in reenactment and bushcraft, and be suitable for a variety of time epoch enactments, so choosing a motif for a carving is not at all easy, and so until now it has none. Maybe I get off my rocker and simply carve a knotwork into it or some zoomorphic ornament, who knows... I will also fit in a piece of agate or amber into the butt end, just because I like the idea.

Now those were the contemplations I subjected to, and one of the reasons it was sitting there idly.

The sheath should also be a versatile design, and I have taken to wear really loose clothing in the woods with no belt, for better flexibility and the ability to do some movements not many people do. So it needed a solution to keep it on my sorry bum without moving about too much. That was the simple part... just a leather thong did the job exceedingly well, and the knife is still light enough to be worn around the neck.

The leather I used also was a novelty for me. Normally I use uncoloured veg tan leather. This one I got cheap from a good and very old friend and fellow writer and medieval craftsman reenactor, Christian from www.dragal.de. It is absolutely top-quality. I was not quite sure whether it would take a decent snap when hardening it, but, soaking it in a solution of soda and spirit, took a really enjoyable hardness to it. Hot - waxing it with a mixture of fir resin, beeswax, birch tar, linseed oil and spirit finished it off so that the "snap" actually is just a tiny bit softer than that of a Kydex sheath. So, job done... ;-)  

It has quickly become one of my favourite knives for the woods. There are better knives for batoning, but I can take one extra for that task in my backpack. Where it excels, however, are precise cutting jobs. Processing food, snacking, whittling, harvesting plants and mushrooms, you name it. It does not weigh me down and does most of the jobs I need a knife for very well.

That blade is a really good performer for the woods. I am not so pleased with Roselli´s marketing policy, though. I strongly suppose that the advertised hardness refers to the hardness before tempering, and I fail to see the point why one would want to claim an absurd hardness in marketing. For 66 HRC would be extremely hard to sharpen in the field. To make that comparable: A good file comes at that hardness, and with 67HRC you can scratch glass. 62 HRC, however, is not only more than adequate, it is even more than ayone could wish for. So, there would be no issue at all, if  Roselli simply told the truth. This is a most excellent material, period, and needs no boasting up.

If you look for a blade, buy it, though.

On the bench these days...

It has been quite a while since I last posted some projects, for a good reason. With all the human scum tango going on again I simply could not find the creativity and energy anymore to get anything done. I seldom if ever even get to the forge, and if, I don´t seem to be able to do anything worth mentioning. It has been a while since I finished the forging on the bushcraft blade, and it lay unnoticed for quite some time.

So I am glad that only recently I mustered some resolve to get something done. Since my forge time is very limited, I resolved to get myself a weekend project blade, just for motivation and for testing. It is a Roselli, the UHC version of one of my favourite whittling knives, the carpenter. It is said to be Wootz and Roselli claims it coming in an extreme hardness of 66-67 HRC. Now I know how 67 HRC shall feel: At this hardness a blade scrapes glass. I know, because file steel blades do have this hardness after a non-tempering quench, before the temper in an oven. Now do not get me wrong: The carpenter UHC is a very, very fine knife. It is sharp, and has a decent hardness. But fact is, it quite certainly has not a hardness of 67HRC as is. I would estimate it to a 61-62 max. This is well hard enough for me. Most of my knives have a hardness of 58-60HRC and this works best for a backwoods knife. I would say Roselli tricks you a bit by naming the hardness before the tempering process. As I said, it is a very, very fine knife, but this policy sucks a bit. The truth would be well enough. I also got myself a complete knife for horsing around with, and with this knife, just when whittling the ditch on a spoon, the first 2 mm of the tip broke off (no levering). Now you get a complete knife for 120 €, and this is an absolute bargain price for a Wootz blade, and I daresay it really is Wootz, for it shows the characteristical dendritic pattern, together with a simple, but well-made and effective leather sheath. But why the hell does soemone who makes decent knives spend time and energy to make up something that just cannot be achieved technically? Anyway, I already fitted a handle of reindeer antler, which will see some zoomorphic ornament carving as well as some adornments.

The other work in progress is a bushcraft blade I forged myself (120x4mm, convex bevel to zero, handle is 115mm long ), out of a piece of some mystery stainless steel, presumeably 440C or Niolox, a steel comparable to 440C but with a high content of Niobium, making for a finer grain. I am a bit proud that I achieved a complete annealing with an open forge and a fridge, as well as a selective temper. Some first testing shows a good flexibility and a hardness of about 58-61HRC. The holes in the tang are hot - punched through. I daresay it will get either the birchwood burr scales on the picture or some elk, reindeer or sambar stag antler scales... I will keep you posted. ;-)    

Short review of a classic bushcraft combination

On request I am doing a personal evaluation of a very classic bushcraft combination. The famed Roselli hunter and carpenter´s knife. I purchased both on the Jagd und Hund expo years ago and have used them intensively for years.

The big one comes with a 100 mm blade, the short one at 85 mm. Both have slicey 3mm spine thicknesses. The handles are very beautiful birchwood burr and glued on with.... teeth.

Wait... is that teeth? No kidding, even if it made my day when I learned it (I have a very simple kind of humour, you see;-)). Roselli knives are mounted in a special process with the same compound out of which artificial teeth are made.

This, in combination with the hard wood for the handle, makes for a short-tang knife that offers a surprising degree of durability. Even (light) batoning is possible. The blades come with a carbon steel blade each that has a claimed 55 HRC. I suspect a higher degree of hardness, however, for they hold an edge far better and carve a 57 HRC blade. Roselli also offers an alternative with the UHC steel, which has a claimed hardness of 63 HRC and which is made from crucible steel with a carbon content of 1,8%. By heating and special techniques it is achieved that the steel can be forged... and thusly it gets characteristics similar to the famed wootz / pulad... interesting. I´d love to try one, and I´d certainly love to try this technique... we´ll see...;-). No way is not in my vocabulary, and I find it refreshing that in Roselli´s it is neither...;-).

The big knife is a bit awkward at first. The handle makes for a grip that is a bit far back. It is big and chunky and seems to make little sense at first. But as usual, Mr. Roselli had something in mind when designing it. First you have to keep in mind that the butchering technique in the North involves using the handle as a prolongation of reach. The blade is stuck into the flesh of the animal and then pumped to enlarge the wound channel. This extra space is then used to apply further force on the butt of the handle to insert the blade farther in. You might not like this description, and please take note that I am full well aware of the fact that I talk about a living animal. I do not recommend you to try this, too, for when animals are concerned, you need a lot of experience to do this.

Now Mr. Roselli did not want to compromise this technique but also wanted a safety stop for hard working. In order to achieve this he added the taper behind the bolster, which by the way is made from stainless steel, and a finger groove behind it.

It is a light knife and a comfortable carry, but it is suited for hard work such as hard wood whittling, preparing firewood and not-so-delicate tasks. In bigger hands than mine it also might be suited for delicate work, but I am constantly thinking of reshaping the handle. It simply does not suit me that way.

The blades both hold an edge well and out of the box they came hair-poppingly sharp. I never did any reprofiling on the scandi grind, just some stropping from time to time. That tells a story!

The carpenter´s knife is as comfy as it gets. It is well suited for delicate work, preparing food, and, to be honest, all I could wish for.

The sheaths get their job done, ahem;-). They look a bit awkward and are not the best money could buy, but no harm done. They are a bit simple with those belt slits, but one could make or purchase another.

If I had to buy it again I would opt for the carpenter´s knife in UHC steel. It is my personal favourite. The hunter is a specialist knife for special applications. To be a great bushcraft knife (of which the blade and mounting is more than capable) it would need a more versatile and ergonomic handle shape.