Kestrel D-Adze Build

[Robson Valley]

The D-adze doesn't quite have the same global popularity among native cultures as an elbow adze.
In the Pacific Northwest, it's more common in the south (Coast Salish & Muckleshoot, for examples)
than it is further north with the mainland Tlingit or the Haida.

I used flat sawn, 6/4 (37mm?) birch and the pattern from Kestrel Tool. Believed that I needed to try to make
some handles before I bought the blade. Power miter saw for length, band saw for blade seat & perimeter,
drill press & Forstners for the hand hole and whipping notch, scroll saw to clean up the hand hole.
I make my own little cabinet scrapers from the wide steel lumber strapping band material.
Excellent job to smooth the flat faces.

I guess somebody who was really good with a scroll saw could do all of this.
I need a 7/8" blank for the hand grip to fit my hands. One stop cut on each side and carved back to the depth of the cut.

The Helix snail is a reminder of my general carving speed.
No pix of the whipping process, I had my hands full holding tension on the #18 tarred seine cord.

All up, the adze weighs 22oz/650g. That's OK to swing if you're accustomed to mallet & gouge carving.
The blade is flat, radiused and carving sharp at about 30 degrees. Not much room for honing.
After less than 6 hrs use, the adze is a dream to use for flatting wood, shaping convex surfaces.
Striking at my heart rate, it was really easy work in western red cedar and birch.

I doubt if you need to build one but making handles and buying blades only is a good way to go.
Nope. Software automixes the images. Not my problem.

[rob streeper]

Cool, that gives me some idears... O-1 blades forged and hardened into a range of useful shapes. Cheap too.

[hiroller]

Nice work.
So how do you use it?

[Robson Valley]

Rob, if you're god at forging (forgery?), take a long hard look at the variety of
blades at Kestrel Tool and North Bay Forge. I have the big Stubai carver's adze,
it's about a 7/75 in size. The #7 sweep makes it useful for cross-grain work.
Also use a Baby Sitka that I built up from a Kestrel blade.

Kestrel Tool

Home for North Bay Forge - Wood Carving Tools and Kitchen Cutlery Knives

[Robson Valley]

hiroller
it's a shaping tool so basically vertical strikes to cut off chips.
I split western red cedar slabs from shake blocks and they commonly have a ripple,
a bulge, which runs down the 60cm length of one side. The D adze is magic to flat that off.
The rest of the hand smoothing process is done with a planer knife.
I want smooth wood, not necessary to be factory flat.

With chipping strikes, seems to rough convex curved surfaces, radiused corners. . . . .
Gimme a few more hours! Just got the dang thing whipped up a day or 2 ago.

[rob streeper]

Rob, if you're god at forging (forgery?), take a long hard look at the variety of
blades at Kestrel Tool and North Bay Forge. I have the big Stubai carver's adze,
it's about a 7/75 in size. The #7 sweep makes it useful for cross-grain work.
Also use a Baby Sitka that I built up from a Kestrel blade.

Kestrel Tool

Home for North Bay Forge - Wood Carving Tools and Kitchen Cutlery Knives

Thanks Robson,

I get O-1 regularly and cheaply for other tool building stuff so I've got some stock and honestly can make these even cheaper than the blank prices in the links, plus it gives me justification for having 'all that stuff', and I like it to boot.

Cheers,
Rob

[Robson Valley]

rob streeper: I will keep you in mind.
There are a couple of shapes and sizes that I can't find from any bladesmiths.
I can carve them in wood to explain what I need.
Gimme half a winter in the northern Rocky Mountains to solve the puzzles

[Robson Valley]

Close to a month since I finished the build. Doing my best to find applications as often as possible.
I can take yellow cedar down 1.5mm / 1/16" at a time, quite easily.
Using my snail carving as a hand knob, I can push the D like a plane for high spots.
Flatting ripples in fresh split slabs of western red cedar is just fun.

Then, in a row of strikes, I could feel the blade wobble ever so slightly.
Charlie/Kestrel believed that I had rushed the finish and not got the blade seat
as flat as it should be. Correct. Used some card scrapers and did a far better
job to match the steel of the blade. Whipped again and it is tight.