A gift from Finland: My first puukko

[Brutus013]

I just received a gift from a friend who recently visited Finland for the first time, and it just happens to be a puukko. 8.5cm carbon steel blade, antler handle, and leather sheath. The blade has a nice edge on it, the sheath seems well enough made, and the handle is comfortable. There are some minor gripes, all of which take place at the base of the blade and the bolster cap. The end of the spine isn't flush with the bolster, which is pretty noticeable, and the blade doesn't fit perfectly in the bolster (although it is still completely secure), and you can see a small amount of glue in a couple of areas around the knife. None of these are funtional problems, though, just minor aesthetic problems. Very nice tip on the blade, even grind, and overall it'll be great when it comes to actually using it. I don't have many pics, but here are the ones I do have:

And in this last picture, you can sort of see how the spine isn't flush with the bolster:

Edit: Images don't seem to work, let me upload them somewhere else.

 

[Cliff Nieporte]

That's a pretty nice gift that you got :thumbup:.

It looks a little like the Kellam Puukko that I have:

It's a really nice knife.
The blade holds a good edge & the handle is comfortable to hold onto.
It's one of my favorite Scandi grind knives.

Cliff

 

[Brutus013]

Yeah, I don't have any experience with the Scandinavian grind, nor the convex grind, so I'm pretty excited to go test it out tomorrow. I really like the handle shape, so I might end buying one or two more puukkos, maybe some of the more high end ones. I've seen some with birch bark handles that look very nice.

 

[StretchNM]

That is definitely a knice gift! In the last year, I've found the Scandi grind, and it has now surpassed the convex edge as my favorite edge-grind.

One thing I've noticed about these Scandinavian knives is that fit and finish isn;t always as perfect as we expect from our major U.S. manufacturers.... even in the production scandi knives. It isn;t that they can;t, oviously, it's just that (I think) they don;t worry too much about perfect reproduction. They're more concerned with functionality.

Nice one! Pretty good pictures too. :thumbup:

 

[Brutus013]

That is definitely a knice gift! In the last year, I've found the Scandi grind, and it has now surpassed the convex edge as my favorite edge-grind.

One thing I've noticed about these Scandinavian knives is that fit and finish isn;t always as perfect as we expect from our major U.S. manufacturers.... even in the production scandi knives. It isn;t that they can;t, oviously, it's just that (I think) they don;t worry too much about perfect reproduction. They're more concerned with functionality.

Nice one! Pretty good pictures too. :thumbup:

Yeah, I'm not too concerned that the blade isn't fitted absolutely perfectly into the handle, the handle itself is still comfortable, the blade itself is the perfect size, so I'm still happy with it.

 

[Cliff Nieporte]

Yeah, I don't have any experience with the Scandinavian grind, nor the convex grind, so I'm pretty excited to go test it out tomorrow. I really like the handle shape, so I might end buying one or two more puukkos, maybe some of the more high end ones. I've seen some with birch bark handles that look very nice.

Please let us know how you like it after you play around with it.

Like StrechNM said , the fit & finish might not be perfect on all of them , but for the most part they're made to be working knives , & they do that very well.

The lower priced knives like the Moras seem to have the poorest fit & finish that I've seen so far , but that doesn't take away the fact that they're good working blades:

You might get one that looks like this one where the blade enters the handle. I even put some epoxy in the gap at that point:

The blades from Finland go a step or two up in looks & have better sheaths than the Moras:

Then there are the Brusletto & Helle knives.
More highly polished & finished than either the Swedish or the Finnish blades & the sheaths are decorated a bit more in some cases:

Lots to choose from , but in the end they all work about the same.
Cliff

 

[Elen]

Fit and finish is rather seldom "perfect" on Scandis, except for "jewelry knives". You might find that even hand-made customs come with less than perfect fit and finish, except for the ones not even designed to be used in real knife work. That's how it is. I