Blog about manufacturing, tools, and machines

Before I start making leather sheaths, I decided to make a few new leather stamps.

Scrimshaw is the name of the engraving technique on bone. In my Product gallery is a picture of a boot knife engraved with the head of a badger. These two new knives are engraved with animal motives too, although in one case the animal is, alas, extinct.

I did not plan a two-week pause, life circumstances just happened in a way that resulted in it. So today I will pick up where I left off last time – fixing handle scales to the tang.

I finished re-working my belt grinder to a state when it is usable again, thus I could work on knives once more.

This week a problem with my belt grinder popped up so I had to deal with it. Specifically, when it was running full-speed, the whole thing was vibrating a lot and the ball bearings were very strained and got ruined relatively soon.

Winter arrived suddenly and strongly, it's freezing, and everything is covered with a thick layer of snow. Thus, I postponed the work on the forge since I could not try it out anyway. Instead, I have decided to finish some blades I made a while ago. I intend to make finished knives as long as I can heat the workshop...

I was hoping that this week the forge will be finished, but alas that is not the case. The main factor is the weather. I have started to make this last part of the forge as first, actually, exactly because its manufacture includes long waiting times that I cannot influence.

The second part of the manufacture of my new forge was finishing the mobile base. It was easy – I just filled the newly made wheelbarrow in three steps.

Whenever I need to make a bigger blade, like a machete, I must do it in a charcoal fire. That has some advantages, but some disadvantages too. The main disadvantage is that hot coals can fly out of the fire, which is not ideal safety-wise. The second disadvantage is that I have to prepare it impromptu each time, which costs...

The third, and for now the final, version of my bushcraft knife is in principle the same as the prototype. I made one knife of this type as a commission last year, one is available in the webshop, and one is currently in production for the webshop.