Craftsmanship > Hawks and Knives

"CROOKED KNIFE"???- Puffer

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Puffer:
As many of you know, the NWC & HBC, in the PNW, are of "prime" interest to me.

One of my main interests is David Thompson.
I presently got a GREAT book on his time @ the Saleesh House  ( I highly recommend this book ) http://www.davidthompsonbook.com/

One of the areas that intrigues me is the tools that these men used to build their buildings, canoes etc. In his book,Carl Haywood, discusses many of the techniques & tools used. To my surprise, he mentions a "CROOKED KNIFE" as being a necessity to these men.

Here is a pic. [albumimg:2lthaduq]4172[/albumimg:2lthaduq]

& Here is a site that has them.http://www.davidthompsonbook.com/

Does anyone have more info ??
Has anyone made &/or used one ???

Puffer

woodman:
A crooked knife is used for carving and shaping. I have and use one in my shop a great deal of the time.
   Woodcraft and Highline Hardware are two sources for modern made ones.
 Woodman

Three Hawks:
The crooked knife is a Pan-Boreal tool, basically used by peoples  near  the Arctic Circle all around the globe.  None are standardized except very locally and most are made by the user to his own desires.  They are almost unknown below the Arctic Circle, the closest tool to a crooked knife is the farrier's hoof knife.

Due to distribution by speciality mail order tool outlets  they are becoming more and more common in Southern climes.    This is quite similar to the availability of very specialized traditional Japanese wood working tools.

Three Hawks

Pitchy:
Looks like a hoof knife, bet ya could take the blade from one of those and put a antler handle on it and have the same thing.

Three Hawks:

--- Quote from: "Pitchy" ---Looks like a hoof knife, bet ya could take the blade from one of those and put a antler handle on it and have the same thing.
--- End quote ---

In some cases a hoof knife will answer well for a crooked knife.  

There is no standardized pattern of crooked knife.  there are some tendencies to similarity of shapes used for similar cutting tasks, but that's as far as it goes.  There are left handed, right handed, shallow curve and sharp curve blades in myriad styles, some will have hard angular bends, some soft.   They will be found with top and bottom bevels as well.  Some are dirt simple and some are works of art.  Again, no standard shapes or styles.

Handles can be made from any hard material including wood, plastic, antler, ivory and bone.  I've seen handles fastened with everything from rawhide, nylon tie wraps, fishing line, epoxy, friction tape, copper and steel wire, rivets and grocery string, just to name a few.   A good friend has a dozen or so crooked knives he made for his own use, he prefers curved pieces of Spruce root for handles and fastens them with copper wire windings soldered in place.  He also decorates the handles with his family fetishes, Raven and Turtle.  By the way, he's full blood Haida.

The European "equivalent" of the crooked knife is the draw knife.

Three Hawks

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