West Coast Planer Knife

[Robson Valley]

Here is the knife that I assembled. The blade began as a Mora Equus #188 double edged hook knife. Sort of a compound sweep, starting at about a #3 and will finish about a #5.
1. Cut off the hook with a Dremel & cutoff wheel, bevel that edge on a stone in the drill press.
2. Clamp the Mora to the bench, chalk up a new chainsaw file (7/32") and change the bevels from 30 degrees to 15 degrees, clean up with 400 grit paper wrapped around a dowel. Test; Carves OK but rough. Cover the blade with plastic & tape.
3. Drill out the brass rivets, the blade isn't glued in.
4. Cut the tang slot in the handle, 18" double bent piece of willow. Shape the end of the handle to relieve the blade.
5. Butter the tang with JB Weld epoxy and into the slot. Fill the slot voids with strips of rosewood and more JBWeld. Let that set up overnight.
6. Trim the excess epoxy and rosewood.
7. Clamp down and tune up the bevels with 1500 grit automotive W&D paper on a dowel.
Test: This is meant for shallow relief planing, cutting the ridges off between gouge marks, etc. Can be pushed or pulled, either right or heft-handed. Cuts very nicely but keep it shallow.
Second pic shows a pair of Mora #171 hook knives, sharpened at 20 degrees, for comparison. Look! A free scorp with every knife!

[pallin]

Nice "crooked knife" Robson Valley. Several of us have come to appreciate the usefullness of the curved NW style of knives. Usually the blade is mounted flush with the bottom surface of the handle so that it can work better for planing. Kestral Tools on Lopez Island makes some very nice blades. Here's a recent discussion:

Crooked knives

[Robson Valley]

Thanks for the comment and for the link. Didn't occur to me to put the blade on the bottom. Tells you how closely I've looked at crooked knives! That would be a better geometry for doing the undercut for a kerf-bent box corner. I took away quite a lot of the willow, it was a cylinder to begin with. I wanted a 2-handed knife anyway. I hold the 171 hook knives in my palm (sometimes useful to have one in each hand.) OR, the otherway round and I can push on the unsharpened back edge of the hook.
I went to a farm store to buy some new denim jeans and the farrier's rack was right in front of me . . . .what can I say?
I've started my experiments for kerf-bent boxes, one test corner at a time. I really had the hots to get the knife made to thin the outside of the corners. For that, it works like a dream in western red cedar (5" wide). So far, I have several large pots of nice smelling cedar "broth" but no recipes to use it in. Half a dozen more experiments to go, the bending is the puzzle, I can cut the entire corner, totally by hand, in about 40 minutes..

[Inadv]

Brian: That is a very fine looking tool you made there! I am completely unfamiliar with that type of tools, but they look very effective, and I would bet that they serve you well. Thanks for sharing!

L.P.

[Robson Valley]

Mitakuye Oyasin: Thank you. I have made a serious start on my pair of 30" Ravens. The knife is nice for smoothing the ovals of the heads and the inward sweep of the backs.

Check out Pallin's link. While I've seen them used, I can't afford such a blade at the moment and I needed a rough knife for bigger things. Stuff that is just too awkward to do with a 5/35 gouge.

The Mora steel is no screamin' Hello. You might get 50 cuts and have to tune it up. I can live with that.

[BrandantR]

It turned out great Brian. I hope it works as well as it looks.

[pallin]

Here's another recent discussion of crooked knives, including an interesting link to a book on "mocotaugen" - the crooked knives of the Algonquins (Northern Woodland) Indians.

Crooked and Hook Knives Video

[Robson Valley]

Maybe we could call them "sweep" knives? They are like the sweep of a gouge in many respects.

I'll stick with the Mora knives for the time being: they are cheap, they are readily available in either right-hand, left-hand or double edge models, not hard to maintain and fairly easily altered from 30 degrees to 15 degrees, despite the sweep.
= = =
The Mora knives have flat-sided handles so I clamp the thing to the bench, blade hanging well over the edge. Stand up one of my silly wooden triangles to remind myself exactly what 15 degrees or 20 degrees really look like.
Rub a chainsaw file with chalk (flour, talcum powder, etc.) The idea is that by filling the bottoms of the grooves, bits of metal can't get jammed in there and make the file "bump."
Any file cuts more smoothly when chalked up, even the ones I used for competition pistol iron sights (ISU Rapid Fire, etc.).
Stroke down and across at the needed angle. You could have put black felt marker on the blade but the knives come with some sort of rust-resistant dull coating and you can watch that going away, instead. Replaced by nice silvery metal.
When that's run out to the edge, I do all the rest with sandpaper on a 1-1.5" dowel.
Don't forget to hone the back flat side. Less than 30 minutes, start to finish.
Places that sell horse tack and farrier's supplies.

[Gulf Coast Handyman]

Well done Brian!

Dave

[Robson Valley]

Dave: Thanks. A little further along, I'll post a pic of the knife in use to shape the backs of 30" tall Ravens. I called it a planer knife because that's exactly what it's for. Big, two-handed and I also wanted to see if I could put one together.

Now, if I had wanted a "quickie" Haida-style carving knife, there's a nice selection of blades and pieces on p81 in the Sept/11 Lee Valley tools catalog.