Knives in the Madawaska Valley

[Sparljo]

Hi all:

I recently spent a week in the Madawaska Valley region of Ontario.

Beautiful county.

Made up a pair of knives for myself to test. (My favorite part of making)

My preferred camping setup is a Large knife for bushwhacking and light chopping, and a small knife for everything else.

I didn't snap any pics in use, but took some ok before shots, and a couple afterpics.

First up, my Opeongo eating knife. (And a Kitty)

In the past I have found that cooking and eating were the two main uses of my small camp blades. I made this one in mind of that, working towards a sharpened butterknife shape.

OAL is 6.5 inches with a edge of 2.75 inches. Handle is black linen Micarta with Yellow liners, stainless steel pin and aluminum tube. Cracked one scale while hammering in a pin.

I broke the grind on the spine early on doing the bevels, but I continued on anyway and ground it as thin as I dared. Its a wicked little slicer, and has just a tiny bit of flex.

Made up a simple horizontal sheath, and it sits just left of the belt buckle. Piss poor dye job and no wax finish.

Here it is now.

 

[Sparljo]

Next, my Madawaska chopper.

This was my 4th attempt at building a big knife, all previous attempts failed in some way or another.

OAL is 15 inches with 10 inches of blade.
However 1.5 of the edge and 3 inches of the spine did not fully harden.
I was leery to use it due to this, but used it anyway and became fully confident. Could there still be danger in using such a thing?

Handle is Canvas Micarta with stainless pins and aluminum tube. My first attempt at filework on there... didnt get all the gaps filled with epoxy.

The sheath was actually stitched for my first big knife when I started making. This one fits it nicely though the stitching isnt perfect by any means.

Here it is now.

Here is me and the dog getting ready to chop that big pile of birch maple and oak into a smaller pile of birch maple and oak and light it on fire.

Here is me cleaning up the mess.

Hope you enjoyed the pics

 

[DoctaD]

Thanks for sharing. I really like the dimensions and shape of the little knife.

 

[Sparljo]

Thanks DoctaD

It proved to be very handy.