Keeweenaw Kaiken

[ScottRoush]

Here is a simple little knife that I decided to make while on a recent trip into Copper Country.. the Keeweenaw peninsula of the UP of Michigan. The peninsula is a long tongue of land jutting right out into the middle of Lake Superior. It is a remarkable place with the crust of the Earth fully exposed and upheaved basalts littered with wonderful treasures. It's a rock hound's paradise and one of the few places on Earth where copper occurs in it's metallic state.

Here is some loot from my last trip:

Look at that big piece of iron ore on top. You can practically forge it right into a knife!

A piece of native copper my son and I found with a metal detector at an old mine location in Copper Harbor of all places. Oh the irony.

And I can't resist add a picture of an agate that my son found on.. wait for this... Agate beach. Oh the irony.

Since I'm never getting to the knife.. might as well show this... a bowl that me and Iron John Logan started raising and dishing at my recent hammer-in from a huge chunk of Keeweenaw copper. I've since done a lot more work on this and will be showing at an art show this week:

All of this a prelude to what is a very simple, tight little knife in the Japanese tradition.. my own interpretation. I haven't taken the final pictures as I'm still waiting for the finish to dry on the wood and still playing with ebony mekugi pin. Most of the elements are tied in to Lake Superior with glacial float copper habaki and old growth birch that was salvaged by diver from Lake Superior.

The blade is forged from orishigane that I made from Lake Superior sourced wrought iron nails and bloomery iron. My original intention was to do a single beveled edge.. but I changed my mind mid-forging and thought it would be fun to have the orishigane on one side and hamon on the other. Since the orishigane is too low in carbon.. the blade would have been without a hamon at all. I didn't use clay and the simple hamon seems to follow the line of the orishigane on the other side.

Here are some construction pictures:



Forming the habaki from forged native copper

So just a simple knife.. more a focus on materials and continuing to learn the exacting Japanese methods to construct these 'take-down' knives..

 

[Shaw Blades]

Nice. That copper has a great color tone to it.

 

[ScottRoush]

Nice. That copper has a great color tone to it.

Thanks... that patina is made via the niage process using rokusho. That picture of it sitting on the copper pot shows a bit of it. Rokusho is a 'Japanese secret' in terms of the ingredients. And requires a lot of preparation that almost seem to be superstition... except that it seems to be necessary.

I thought I might take the opportunity to show some of the other Japanese work that I've been doing.. hoping to build skills that I can put into my blade work down the line. One of the things I'm interested in is the idea of the netsuke... the little carved toggles used to hold bags, boxes and other vessels in the sash of traditional Japanese dress. I love the idea of using netsuke to hold things.. in belts or on packs. The kiridashi pictured is my first foray into that. Sort of a trick box using a lump of wrought iron (natural netsuke) as the means of holding it and suspending it. The bamboo netsuke is one I carved from boxwood that is a near replica of an historical piece.. except I used native copper for the growth buds instead of having them integral (the original was ivory).

 

[ScottRoush]

 

[Lycosa]

Cannot wait to see this one, Scott.
rolf

 

[Dawkind]

Exceptional work my friend....the epitome of 'handmade'.

 

[ScottRoush]

Thanks guys...

Well the wood is done. Just need to show pictures of polished blade and habaki (I've done some file work)..

The background here is something I did for fun. While up in the Keeweenaw some of the gift shops had copper impregnated fire bricks from the old smelters. It looked really amazing. So I tried something similar with melted copper and driftwood. Unique if nothing else...

 

[tedinatl]

That looks awesome, Scott! Can't wait to see the final result!

 

[Lycosa]

Is this one on order?

 

[Daniel Fairly Knives]

Incredible! I am a rockhound too, very nice finds! Stellar work on the knives.

 

[ScottRoush]

Is this one on order?

I think it's accounted for!

And thanks Daniel. That rock collecting sure gets in your blood. Man.. I become obsessed as soon as I get into agate and iron/copper country!

Well I hit a distraction on this... I was cleaning up the habaki after doing some decoration.. and I kinda like the look of the natural copper and the sanding lines. So I took a picture and plan to dwell on it.

 

[JParanee]

Another great piece my friend

 

[ScottRoush]

Thanks Joe..

Here is a cool picture of the hamon...

 

[Lycosa]

Fantastic!!
Thanks for that pic!

 

[evanPGH]

Great work here, Scott.

Shobu zukuri is a favorite of mine and I enjoy your take on it.

The habaki has a lovely, silky smooth patina and it works well with the handle.

I may have missed it, but what is the mekugi made from?

 

[ScottRoush]

Well I do intend to show final pictures of this even though most of you have seen what this knife is all about. I also intend to get back to my 'Arya's Needle' project. But I had a show this last weekend and everything got shuffled.

In the meantime.. check out these little Japanese kitchen knives I made for the show. I'm consider them Japanese style 'backpack cutlery'.. compact, tight little kitchen knives made from diver-salvaged wood and 15n20. They have a very tight fit right now.. and if the saya ever loosens up you have tap in the little ebony pin to tighten back up.

Great work here, Scott.

Shobu zukuri is a favorite of mine and I enjoy your take on it.

The habaki has a lovely, silky smooth patina and it works well with the handle.

I may have missed it, but what is the mekugi made from?

Thank you! The mekugi is ebony. I wasn't sure if it would be too brittle.... but so far I've tapped that thing in and removed dozens and dozens of times.. and it seems to be just fine...

 

[Camber]

Those are way cool