Did your Traditional knife get a workout today? -Part II

Prepping figs to make a fig & cinnamon shrub:

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WhittlinAway said:
Prepping figs to make a fig & cinnamon shrub:

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Sigh...our fig season ended in July.
I had to look up what a "shrub" is. You use it in cocktails? Sounds delicious and refreshing, and would go well paired with pan-seared breast of dove. ;)
 
r8shell said:
I had to look up what a "shrub" is. You use it in cocktails? Sounds delicious and refreshing, and would go well paired with pan-seared breast of dove. ;)
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In cocktails or with soda water to make a refreshing non-alcoholic version. I've also got a blueberry shrub in progress. Another week and I'll know how they turned out. :)
 
Bringing this one back up. I really don't often get many opportunities to give a pocket knife a workout, but this weekend was different! My old home office chair gave up the ghost Friday. The weld broke where the center cylinder attaches to the base of the seat, so no real opportunity for repair without welding gear, and that chair had seen better days in other ways as well.

So, off to the office store to get a new one on Saturday, which came all nicely boxed up in the heavy double-wall corrugated cardboard box it had probably traveled in across the Pacific Ocean and 75% of the US to get to me. All ready for me to spend about 45 minutes assembling while getting to practice my fluency in English curse words.

That day, I was carrying a Queen Country Cousin, D2, olive green Micarta, which I had spent some time getting quite sharp recently, so that got the box opening and packing material chores. Not really that strenuous for it, because it primarily had to go though packing tape and plastic and not much else. Surprisingly, I looked at the edge of it after sawing through something and noticed the little shiny areas indicative of a dull or rolled edge. Maybe I had made the edge too acute, or that sharpness was a wire edge? I thought D2 would hold up a little better, but I am more ready to blame my sharpening skills over the steel.

So I left the box and the internal cardboard pieces piled up in the kitchen last night, opting to attack that today in the light of day. I thought this would be a good use for my ZT 0566 Elmax folder. It's good and sturdy, and I had it sharpened well. I needed to cut up that big box to fit into a recycling bin, so it was going to be cut up several ways, both with and against the corrugation grain. First cut went ok, but as part of that it picked up some tape residue from remaining packing tape. From there on it was quite a chore to get that blade through. I realized it was because of a combo of the thickness of the blade, as well as being gummed up with tape.

I decided this might be a good opportunity to try out some of my different knives, so I went back in the house and came out with about 5 more to try their hand. First up, Benchmade Mini-Grip. Same issue - sharp knife but thicker blade geometry made cutting through the thick cardboard difficult.

So next up - Case Stockman (6347). Sheepsfoot blade. Zip, right through. Hmm. Kept going. No problems. Lengthwise, across the grain, just went right through it. I looked at the blade midway through and there were a couple of sparkles along the edge. So I did a few stropping passes directly on the cardboard I was cutting up, and went back to it. Finished up the job with no problems. After I was done, about 5 passes per side on a regular kitchen honing steel and a little polishing on a leather strop and back to new.

The Elmax blade took me some work on a diamond plate and strop to get it all shaving sharp again, so not bad but a bit more effort.

Of course in retrospect it's obvious - there's a reason box cutters are thin, flat, and have a straight edge, just like the sheepsfoot blade on the Case knife. I have used that ZT before to chop small limbs off of downed tree branches with no detriment to it, something I would not use the Case knife for. But when trying to pull it downwards through a tight medium like heavy cardboard, it had a tendency to bind up, where the thinner blade just slid through.

No pics of the actual work, but here's the knife I used:
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jc57 said:
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No pics of the actual work, but here's the knife I used:
Wj6NQk3.jpg
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Enjoyed the story, John. Yep, Case stockman For The Win!!! :D

(But cardboard is a blade killer. That's why I keep my Gerber EAB-Lite handy for anything heavier than packing tape. :p )
 
A while back I found that carving a bas relief is a lot easier that whittling a little figure out of a big block of wood. :) So yesterday I got out my Rough Rider 106 split-back whittler and tried to create a representation of a sunflower. I did a bit of finishing work this morning and here's where it stands now.

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Ace Rimmer said:
A while back I found that carving a bas relief is a lot easier that whittling a little figure out of a big block of wood. :) So yesterday I got out my Rough Rider 106 split-back whittler and tried to create a representation of a sunflower. I did a bit of finishing work this morning and here's where it stands now.

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I like it! :):thumbsup:
Have you ever seen pictures of "chip carving"? There are some neat patterns for decorating things like wooden boxes that might be fun to try.
 
r8shell said:
I like it! :):thumbsup:
Have you ever seen pictures of "chip carving"? There are some neat patterns for decorating things like wooden boxes that might be fun to try.
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Wow, thanks for the suggestion! I had never heard of that, but a quick search brought up lots of pictures. Looks kind of like an inverted relief. I have trouble coming up with ideas for things to carve so this will help.

I watched a three-part series on PBS recently about the history of China. One thing that caught my attention was how they did printing from large slabs of wood into which the characters were carved by hand. I can't imagine doing such intricate, detailed work. And, of course, the characters have to be carved "backward".
 
Used my Kutmaster Tungsten to extricate Mom's painting table from the pokeweed.
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Looks like I'll be able to find some stuff for the bulk trash pick-up, too.
 
Doing some modifications to our carport and used my Case 6318 stockman to cut and split some Tygon tubing and cut some rope, and used my Case 6207 Wharncliffe mini trapper to remove some burrs from PVC pipe. (Two different parts of the job and wearing different pants, thus the different knives. :) ) Then up on the roof working on our TV antenna, used my mini trapper to cut electrical tape.
 
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Friday evening and this afternoon marked the first workouts for my Pasi Hurttila Tuohipää puukko.

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I'm working on a spoon made of plum wood—my first attempt with green wood—and it has tackled the lion's share of the shaping of the handle and outside of the bowl. It's an absolute joy to use. It is comfortable in hand, carves well, and is easy to control. It has remained super sharp throughout.

There's still quite a bit of work to be done on the spoon, but I'm looking forward to it.
 
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