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- Nov 6, 2006
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After waffling over it for a while I finally bit the bullet, bought some knife blanks and gave a go at making handles. I purchased a Lauri 7" leuku and 77mm PT puukko blade. I had amassed various handle material over the last few months so off to work I went. I should have taken more pics along the way but I didn't really think about it at the time.
I did the leuku first. It ended up being more work than I had anticipated but it wasn't a huge pain. The hardest part was forming the brass bolster. For the handle I used two pieces of Desert Ironwood, a piece of fossilized oosic and birch bark for spacers. I'm still refining the shape of the handle and you may notice that both sides aren't exactly the same....I made them asymmetric since I don't anticipate using it in a variety of holds. You can also see that my drilling skills on the oosic weren't the best.
Next up was the puukko. I didn't want an exact match to the leuku but something close. I had some more ironwood but after I cut one of the pieces I found some small cracks inside of it. I was hesitant to use it so I went with plan B....stacked birch bark. I had been leery of trying that as I thought it might be too much too soon but it was actually far easier than I had anticipated. I glued the bark on in sections, sanding to a rough shape in between and then did the final shaping once it was all together. The hardest part of this knife was the pommel though most of that had to do with my choice of material. If I had decided to use a plain piece of brass it would have been much easier; as it was I had to cut the last few pieces close to the proper size to try to avoid sanding the edges of the pommel.
The handle material in raw form with a couple of leftovers.
Getting there...
I had a lot of fun doing this and I can see myself making more in the future. Perhaps the most valuable lesson I learned in the whole thing is to buy a brass bolster next time. I made them on both knives and I spent far too much time dealing with the bolsters. They also didn't turn out perfect but they were good enough for me. It would have been a lot easier and less time if I had a belt sander but since I didn't it was all done by hand and with a dremel.
For those of you who were like me and on the fence I say go for it. It's really a lot of fun and inexpensive. Even though I used some more unusual materials I have about $100 total in both knives. I won't even guess at how much I have in labor but the satisfaction of holding the finished knives in hand was well worth the cost.
I did the leuku first. It ended up being more work than I had anticipated but it wasn't a huge pain. The hardest part was forming the brass bolster. For the handle I used two pieces of Desert Ironwood, a piece of fossilized oosic and birch bark for spacers. I'm still refining the shape of the handle and you may notice that both sides aren't exactly the same....I made them asymmetric since I don't anticipate using it in a variety of holds. You can also see that my drilling skills on the oosic weren't the best.
Next up was the puukko. I didn't want an exact match to the leuku but something close. I had some more ironwood but after I cut one of the pieces I found some small cracks inside of it. I was hesitant to use it so I went with plan B....stacked birch bark. I had been leery of trying that as I thought it might be too much too soon but it was actually far easier than I had anticipated. I glued the bark on in sections, sanding to a rough shape in between and then did the final shaping once it was all together. The hardest part of this knife was the pommel though most of that had to do with my choice of material. If I had decided to use a plain piece of brass it would have been much easier; as it was I had to cut the last few pieces close to the proper size to try to avoid sanding the edges of the pommel.
The handle material in raw form with a couple of leftovers.
Getting there...
I had a lot of fun doing this and I can see myself making more in the future. Perhaps the most valuable lesson I learned in the whole thing is to buy a brass bolster next time. I made them on both knives and I spent far too much time dealing with the bolsters. They also didn't turn out perfect but they were good enough for me. It would have been a lot easier and less time if I had a belt sander but since I didn't it was all done by hand and with a dremel.
For those of you who were like me and on the fence I say go for it. It's really a lot of fun and inexpensive. Even though I used some more unusual materials I have about $100 total in both knives. I won't even guess at how much I have in labor but the satisfaction of holding the finished knives in hand was well worth the cost.
