OT looking for a source of bent/crooked carving knives

Bobwhite

Bobwhite

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I got a nice gift for Christmas. It is a bent tip or crooked carving knife. It is from North Bay Forge and came through Woodcraft. I love it for the woodcarving tool it is, it makes cuts a regular knife would not. It is shaped like a J in edge on profile and can thus hollow out from flush surfaces. The blade is sharp on both sides and about 3" long, the last inch curving up so it is perpendicular to the rest of the knife. The handle is about a foot long and hardwood, tapered to fit the hand nicely. It is a comfortable and instincitve tool to use. It is hand forged and simple looking but of high quality. The paper work with the knife said it is a traditional tool of North West Indians for wood carving. They make some different ones with various degrees of curvature, that would offer me even more versatility, but they are pricey, about $50.00 apiece. Any one know of any other companies or individuals making these tools? Yvsa and others with NDN blood, are these really traditional NDN tools or is that a bunch of marketing hoopla?
 
At the end of a "fly in" fishing trip, out of Fort Frances years ago, I got in a conversation with the Cree engineer (aircraft mechanic) who kept the outfitter's float planes wired together. Great shop, including a wood pile, and a set of about 20 carving knives much like what you describe. He said they were made in the area, and he carved "genuine" Pacific Northwest totems and masks for a tourist shop in town (city ladies from Minnesota will buy anything "native"). Fort Frances, is, of course, south central. (HEE) I've seen a site which offers hand forged knives, patterned after the Voyageurs and Trapper styles used up there, but can't find it. Can you post a URL?
 
A Totem Pole takes some carving but I'm not sure which tribes make these and further am not sure what tools they use. Not much help I'm afraid but I'm sure others more knowledgeable will be around to help. Whatever you use, Bob, I'm impressed with the results. You should post a couple of pix of samples of your work.
 
Originally posted by rkenny@wcupa.edu
I got a nice gift for Christmas. It is a bent tip or crooked carving knife. It is from North Bay Forge and came through Woodcraft. I love it for the woodcarving tool it is, it makes cuts a regular knife would not.

Yvsa and others with NDN blood, are these really traditional NDN tools or is that a bunch of marketing hoopla?
Click to expand...

Bob they are very much ndn as these things go.

I don't know what the non-ndns used to make bowls and spoons and other like objects with (especially before the non-ndns came here) but us ndns would take a steel knife,
heat it up, and put the curve we wanted in it and then quench it, probably in water(?)
I don't know if any of the Northern, Northwestern tribes used the native copper for crooked knives or not.
I do know that it was used for more conventional blades, once saw a very beautiful "Hudson Bay Dagger" made from copper in a museum in Montana!!!!
I haven't really ever thought about it before, but my 1st thoughts would be definitely so.
My old man used to tell me that the ndns that had native copper learned a process that the non-ndns yet had to figure out about making the copper almost as hard as steel.
My thoughts in later years after I grew up was that the non-ndns could figure out anything we did in the early days with modern technology, it just stands to reason for me,
but on the other hand I do know for positive that native copper was often found and used for tools.
I also know that if one cold works copper just right that it becomes pretty dayumed hard.
Don't know about edge holding, but all the totem poles made by the pacific northwest tribes were made from the Humongous Western Cedar Trees that carves easily.
They also made their "long houses" from split slabs of the very same cedar.
It cuts and splits easily (usually:)) so copper could/would work fairly well in it.
There are a few examples of some very beautiful pre-invasion wooden utensils such as bowls and spoons that were made with some kind of tools.

Another interesting (to me) note (I was told) that the very most northern peoples and some a bit further south, the Inuit and like peoples developed a way to braze copper and steel together without the flux used by the non-ndn.
It was also supposed to be one of those close kept secrets and I don't know how true it is.
However there are knives that used to come from that area that were of steel blades and native(?) copper handles.
I question almost everything these days rather than believe them like a very proud young lad that has always loved and was very proud of his people no matter what tribe they were of.:)
Still do,
even knowing the ndns downfalls and circumstances. They really aren't the ones to blame and with the coming of the casinos and a way to make an honorable living many tribes are proving that to be so.
It's always been a much more complicated situation than the non-ndn acknowledged or tried to help.
And the US Gubbiment would still have us assimilate instead of being independent people.
They always will wish so and will never understand why the most of us cannot and will not assimilate.
We just can't live like that.;)
 
Our copy of the boy scout handbook departed when my younger son went off to college, but I recall that a section in it dealt with use of the crooked knife to carve bowls, drums etc '...in the Indian way.'
I don't know how sissified the Boy Scouts have become in these effete latter days of the Republic (one might suppose that the use of axe, hatchet, knife and rifle, once honor badge skills, must have succumbed to the PC crazes of tatting, crocheting and candy-making) but it's possible that the Boy Scout catalog might still offer the crooked knife of yore. The one I saw was a blade only do-it-yourself item, for which you were to fashion and lash on your own haft. I recall pages in the manual showing use.
(This information is now easily 20 years out of date, so don't be surprised if it is unreliable!)
Ken
 
I remember seeing LeeValley tools had some carving knives patterned after the native carving knives. I don't know how authentic they are. Their website is www.leevalley.com I think.
 
Thanks all for the info. Yvsa, it is always good to learn from those who are direct links to the real deal. Bruise, that gave me just what I was looking for, I can buy the blades and carve my own handles. Uncle, if we can get an HI version, that would be great. What do the Kamis use to carve those fancy scabbards and handles with? Maybe I could just get a set of their woodcarving tools. I would rather like that in fact. It is great to see how peoples around the world approach the same crafts differently.
 
Bob, your last post makes me feel very stupid. I've watched those guys do their carving and I was more interested in watching the results appear than I was in taking note of what sort of tools they were using.
 
No reason to feel stupid Uncle. Watching what they are carving would be much more interesting than seeing what they are using. They are probably very simple, plain and unassuming looking tools. I am guessing they forge them themselves. Probably a couple basic standard chisles and gouges and then some custom/specialty ones as needed for whatever purpose, from the same stock as the khuks. They probably don't have handles in some cases. If you could find out from Pala what they do and see if they would be willing to send over a spare set of basic standard gouges or whatever they use, I would much appreciate that.
 
On crooked knives: I read about them in the `50`s. I saw them in the 60`s in the Yukon. They were being used to shape canoe paddles and thwarts. They were sold by the Hudson`s Bay Co.
Now, I wasn`t there, but this is what I have read.
Despite beacoup iron ore, the Indns never developed metalurgy.
The plains Indns had a pretty rotton and precarious life before the horse culture. After that; after the white man,I would take that life in a heartbeat. The strong take from the weak, and it`s authorised!
Great Warriors are honored. What more could I want?
I studied it as a Boy Scout.
That nomadic way of life died with "bob wire". The long hunters, the free trappers and the free range cowboys died at about the same time. 1820-1840 is the trapper`s time. 1866-1890 just about covers the cowby era. The fight for or against federalism covers the rest.
And, of course continues.
In NV, ID,WA,WY,MT and OR some outfits still rope `em and drag `em to the fire. Somebody is driving a feed wagon as I write.
I can usually keep a snaffle bit snide between me and the ground.
Some other buckaroo can comment on my horse sense.
None the less, the squeeze chutes and the trucks will replace the round up and the drive to new pasture.
Hardly conservation minded, they would herd bison over cliffs and only take the humps and toungs. You can only use so much meat.
They would start prarie fires for the same purpose, with predictable results.
The only reasons that Indin`s did not destroy their enviornment is because there were never that many, and of course, they had no technology.
Despite lots of round things around, the Travois was their cart; pulled by dogs and squaws before the horse. They never figured out the wheel.
The Indins here are Winnabago. They have a Res in OK., but are scalping the idiots here with yet a third casino.
They never had the horse, but their lodges and canoes weren`t bad. Sometimes they drove out the old if food was scarce.
They scalped the Chippawa that came within their view.
Pretty normal Indin culture.
Once upon a time, I was assigned to teach the AF (CAS),close air support. As later events have shown, this was a waste of time.
They just do not want the mission. They never have; no kills, no glory, no rank.
Anyway, I knew some Shoshone and Nez Pierce. Now, you know where I was. They called me Red Bear. I had killed the great white bear, the brown and the black by this time.
I will not kill another bear, except in self defense. I am now brother to the bear. I would kill one now with some regret.
Feel free to correct me if I`m wrong. It has been awhile.

The FNG salutation is an old joke. It does, indeed, refer to the `Nam definition.
As I am,and still am,(despite a financial problem with Earl in the old days), an original member of Knife Forums. This was before BF existed. It has additional meaning to those who were there. Bill comes to mind. Others would date back. Earl was always friendly and accessible he just seduced the pooch and was caught.
I`m sure that he meant to make it right.
 
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