Thread: Haida-style Crooked Knives: Build & Sharpening

The so-called "crooked knives" have a sweep, a curve to the blade. Mora (Sweden) makes them for carving spoons, bowls and kuksa.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, the blade shapes are rather iconic for the styles of carving done by Native artists. There are a number of very good blade makers in the region such as Kestrel, Crescent Knife Works and the late Mike Comick.
I have 2 pairs of reworked Mora Equus hook knives, beveled at approx 12 degrees, same for the Mora #188 blade that I made into a planer knife with a 45cm handle. Those knives (at 30 degrees) are useful and popular in the farrier trade. The standard grip is palm up with the knife in your fist, blade down and your thumb on the side of the handle.
The CNW blades are marketed by Lee Valley. I bought the #4 (06D10.34, the #8 (06D10.38) and the #11 (06D10.41). They gave me the package price as I have a planer knife like their #2 blade. The blades arrive sharpened to 120 grit at some indeterminate angle, I estimate maybe 15 degrees. Clearly the blade maker expects anyone buying these knows what to do next.

I began by splitting out some 30x30x250 pieces of western red cedar. From those, I carved some contoured "prototype" handles which had to be just as comfortable in either RH or LH. Not terribly pleased with the results. Plus the WRC is far too soft for this application. So I ripped up some mahogany and rosewood and made some simple, square handle shapes. I can contour them some other time. When I tapered the nose of the handles, I canted the blade tang slot outwards by approx 10 degrees. This moves the blade out in front rather than hanging straight down, like a dagger. I plan to use them plain for a while before I reconsider any sort of hand-grip contour.

I've recently spent a day in the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology, examining feast bowls, kerf-bent boxes, feast spoons/ladles and Haida-style wood carving tools. Many of the crooked knives had simple handles of 25cm or longer (two handed use?) and the bottom face was distinctly curved. Hence my decision to cant the blade outwards. You can search the UBC/MOA online catalog for these things, and about 35,000 other objects from around the world.

The blades came with cutlery rivets but I elected to use #7 x 18mm Robertson screws which fit the predrilled tang holes snugly. Polyurethane glue worked very well. Consequently the whip finishing is mostly cosmetic. Brown is braided dacron, yellow is braided nylon. A thorough slopping up with carpenter's glue for a finish. Exactly the same process as mounting the line guides on a custom fishing rod.

Sharpening.
I decided that I wanted 12 degree edges. I had a 12 degree angle reference card. With the handle clamped to the bench, I began with black felt marker on the original bevels and used a new & chalked up chainsaw file to make the bevel I wanted. Match the card with the file, elbows to my sides and sway forward. Do not drag the file backwards. Pick it up, back up, go again. Going into the crooked parts was not easy = I was trying to imagine the 12 degrees relative to the flat underside of the blade. For the #8 & #11, the blades are so curved that I could only stand them up on their blades and work just a little of the edge length at a time.
Repeated the process with 400 grit sandpaper, wrapped around a dowel, about 12mm or a bit bigger.
Repeated the process with 1500 grit paper (wet&dry/automotive finishing)
Had to make a cylindrical leather strop which really worked well (soft boot leather, hot glue gun).

You can see that the leather of the strop is in the middle. Not happy with my fingers close to an ever better edge on both sides.
In fact, the blades are about gut-ripping height when clamped to the bench! Made some simple blade guards. I'll maker better when I think of something.

Pictures. I apologize for the OOF shots but you get the idea. One shows my whole collection of crooked knives, Mora and all.
Now here's a puzzle = this new layout won't let me find new pictures, at least I can't figure it out. If I get lucky, Ill post pix in a reply.