Haida carving knife blades

[mr dazzler]

I received a nice little parcel today, only took 4 days to ship-over the weekend-from Canada to England



Well packed in paper, seperate boxes, additional brown paper and a strong outer cardboard box



Despite the orange sticker they arent THAT sharp, not just yet....but they will be....



I bought the starter set plus the additional heavier weight hogging blade. These are sturdy looking tools, not quite as wide as a mora hook. They are each around 3 1/2 to 4 inches long



These are pieces of copper beech that I cut and split a week ago-which will be used to fashion handles for the blades. Lee Valley supplied sets of brass cutlery rivets, but I will most likely attach the blades with whipped seine twine. I will post pictures of the knives when that task is done by next week hopefully.



Thanks for looking, cheers Jonathan

 

[crosslandkelly]

Nice looking set. I look forward to seeing them handled.

 

[Clouston98]

Great stuff! I like the sound of how you're going to handle them! Looking forward to seeing them done .

 

[dancan]

I received a nice little parcel today, only took 4 days to ship-over the weekend-from Canada to England



Well packed in paper, seperate boxes, additional brown paper and a strong outer cardboard box



Despite the orange sticker they arent THAT sharp, not just yet....but they will be....



I bought the starter set plus the additional heavier weight hogging blade. These are sturdy looking tools, not quite as wide as a mora hook. They are each around 3 1/2 to 4 inches long



These are pieces of copper beech that I cut and split a week ago-which will be used to fashion handles for the blades. Lee Valley supplied sets of brass cutlery rivets, but I will most likely attach the blades with whipped seine twine. I will post pictures of the knives when that task is done by next week hopefully.



Thanks for looking, cheers Jonathan

Sure is a pretty sticker

You are correct about them not being sharp and I would not get over zealous with the non hogging blade like I did ....

 

[ozzy1977]

Nice looking blades, do they make them as complete knives?

 

[mr dazzler]

Nice looking blades, do they make them as complete knives?

Not sure Ozzy. On the Lee Valley web store they only seem to have the blades, maybe other retailers do sell them as a complete unit? But I think the notion is that most carvers will prefer a custom personal handle so why take the time and effort to do a factory one seeing as one size never fits all...?

Sure is a pretty sticker

You are correct about them not being sharp and I would not get over zealous with the non hogging blade like I did ....

Did you break a blade? If it broke was it because you were misusing it or because it was a faulty construction, and what type of cut were you doinng at the time and in what wood?? They reiterate on the Lee Valley site "Although these are tough blades, none of them are meant for digging or prying"
But I know how easy it is to over do things, I broke a mora "evilpoint" hook knife in no time (never replaced it...)
I realise that traditionally these knives are used on softwoods like cedar, sometimes alder, and in fact alder is one of my favourite woods to carve.
LOL its ironic, I play drums and am definately NOT what they call "a heavy hitter" ie I usually use 7B jazz sticks, and dont belt the drum set hard-in 30 years since I started playing I have never broke a cymbal, but some "heavy hitters" break them every week. Yet with tools, I tend to be the opposite, very hard on them. But I have learned, if it becomes a struggle move up to a heavier tool, eg if I am struggling with a knife, move up to the elbow adze, if I struggle with that, move up to a axe etc I take out the chain saw as a last resort LOL
cheers Jonathan

 

[dancan]

It was not a warranty claim so I've since bought the hogging blade , haven't broken it or the first one I've bought LOL

 

[HHazeldean]

Nice looking set that, can't wait to see what you do with the handles!

 

[crucible]

These Haida carving blades are definitely not sold with handles- the assumption is that the user will fashion the most suitable handle for their style of carving.

I have managed to make my set extremely sharp through the use of wet and dry paper that was glued onto different sized wodden dowels, and with some final stropping with green polishing compound on an old leather belt.

 

[mr dazzler]

I started work on one of the blades last night, it came up almost as good as a mora after just 10 minutes using a round 1200 norton stone.... Theres still a bit to do, not stropped yet. It takes a while to get used to a new blade, its shape, form, the type of steel etc.

First proto type version



A variety of possible handle shapes..



Cheers Jonathan

 

[HHazeldean]

Oh man now I like the look of that bearded axe! May I ask where its from please?

And that first blade is looking tidy, I always far prefer a bigger handle on crook knives and such, get so frustrated with the tiny handles that they so often come with

 

[FGYT]

nice blades I've made a few and they work great thou mine do come sharp out of the box and again no handles

 

[mr dazzler]

It is a Roselli "all round" axe made in finland. I modified mine by rehandling it. An excellent if underrated and uncool axe.
I know what you mean about little handles, harder to get torque etc for doing some cuts. Having said that my little Davis Brothers knife is TINY, not much bigger than a pentel marker pen, but it can do big things.....