So, folks, it has been quite some time since you have read anything on this blog, and chance is, you already lost patience with me. I had been meaning to write for quite a long time now, but alas, life got the upper hand on me. I lost my day job earlier this year and am still more or less unemployed. A brief hope of working for a sustainability project in Schwelm failed due to... well... let me put it that way... HUMANS! Then my beloved mother got severely ill with liver cancer and died on December, the 8th, after 85 years of making this world a better place. So you can bet I had other things on my mind than writing, and I had to orienteer myself and put a load of things into perspective. For instance, I had to learn the hard way that friends are foes who attack from behind. At least some are. Others simply pop up and help you out when you least expect it. Still others might not yet be called friends, but help you out anyway.
Anke, Marcus and their kids are of the latter stamp. So, we did a knifemaking tutorial for them on their little estate in the countryside.
We forged some semi- integral hunting / bushcraft knives with a rattail tang with the adults.
Willy gladly agreed to come along and did as great a job as usual, also forging with kids.
We forged in pairs and I let the folks do a bit of work, too.
Here you can see we burned the tang in. While it can be done without pre-drilling a hole, we drilled a tiny hole in first. This helps to center the red-hot-tang and minimizes the chance of the wood splitting or the tang bending. You might need several heats to get the tang through. The advantage of burning the tang into the handle is that you get a very good fit, which is important if you use rozzil (cutler´s cement) or natural resin. We used yew wood for the handles. If using yew, make sure, the workplace is well vented; it might not be very good for your health to inhale the fumes! If the wood starts to burn, you can simply blow off the flames or quench it in the bucket. The wood must be completely dried out for the procedure to minimize cracking!
If you forge in pairs, make sure you stay in rhythm. It might be best you make appointments concerning the "smithing language", or else there might be some dangers involved. When doing this with kids, you also might want to keep your stroke somewhat lower than that, also to minimize danger.
Anke had provided us with some delicious pulled pork from the dutch oven and some quality beverages. When we called it a day to commence again come January, we had a hearty and outright delicious meal and a beer... and a chat with really great people. It was not just a tutorial, but a ball and a party to us, and real good fun. In a shitty time of my life, I really look forward to part II of the tutorial, where we will to the quenching and tempering and grinding stuff and mount the handles.
And I promise not to keep you waiting THAT long again. ;-)
