Back at the grinder.

After the canoe trip it was time to get back to work. Meaning some knife making!

Forged a set of puukko blades. If you're interested in few blade forging pics, check the bottom pics of this post from a month back! After forging, grinding, heat treating, and grinding again it's time to fit the brass bolster plates.

Being hand forged, every blade is slightly different. Outer lines of the tang are marked on a piece of brass bar.

One hole is drilled from the front side of the plate.

On the backside I drill two more holes, that don't go all the way through.

Then I use needle rasps to shape the slot.

Slot is shaped to follow the blade shape randomly, but being slightly smaller.

Sides of the slot are ground slightly wider on the backside. Makes it easier to drive the plate down the tang, and it's easier to get a tight fit as well.

First fitting. I drive the plate on the tang by using a hammer and a wooden block. Blade tightly secured on a vice.

Checking the result, and from where to remove material.

Forcing a bolster plate on the tang will form some ridges on the sides of the slot. They'll be removed by sanding the surface back to flat. Then I use needle rasps again to remove some material where it's needed.

These steps are repeated, until shoulders of the blade sit firmly on the brass plate.

After all the bolsters are fitted I shape them slightly on a belt sander. Before starting to build the handle, bolster is taken off one more time, front surface hand sanded to a finer grit, and finally the blade polished as well.

I'm planning to make wooden handles for few of these, and the rest will have birch bark handles. Some coming for sale as well, so stay tuned!

A canoe trip.

1,5 weeks ago it looked like this here in Inari. It was snowing for half a day, but turned into rain later on. Well, lakes haven't had any ice for quite a while now, so was good time for a canoe trip.

With my friend we decided to make a trip on lake Inari, Inarijärvi. Inarijärvi is the third largest lakek in Finland, over 1000 square kilometers, having way over 3000 islands. What makes it unique, is that it's a real wilderness lake, meaning the whole coastline is not filled with summerhouses. There are some cottages, but majority of the area is protected. We headed to the north-east part of the lake, an area that is part of Vätsäri wilderness area.

We headed to the north-east part of the lake, an area that is part of Vätsäri wilderness area. After unloading all our stuff, it was time to attach everything on the canoe. Decent weather, half cloudy and just over +10 celcius.

So there we go... Tuomas, me, and Kumu sighting on top of our bags.

After about 10km we had a first break of the trip. A bit of fishing, and killing plenty of mosquitoes. Kumu watching our lures dropping to the water.

Water in lake Inari is chrystal clear. Something not to be taken granted in this world!

We set our first camp on a small island. Using a ring of stones left behind from someone else. Kumu is clearly frustrated, as there's cooking going on but annoying smoke swirling around. Yeah, by this picture he's already gotten his food, but we haven't....

Some fishing again before leaving the first night's camp. Kumu saw us packing the canoe, so he won't go far that he wouldn't be left behind. Many of the small islands don't have decent firewood. This one had, so we packed some fatwood with us.

A man walking on the water? No, Tuomas is standing on a rock just beneath the surface. Good spot for fishing, just at the end of small stream.

Graylings were the most common catch on the trip, we got some every day. When we catched what we could eat, it was better to stop fishing, as there was no way they would stay good until we'd be back after several days. There's a minimum size of 30cm for graylings, smaller than that were released.

Aside graylings we got several pikes too. The one Tuomas got was pretty big!

We spent one night in an open hut of Pisteri. Someone had reserved the other side for his trimaran, so we had to park our mighty green vessel on the other side of the cooking shelter.

Pisteri open hut is a nice old log house, with space for 10 people. Equipped with a wood burning stove for heating, and a gas stove for cooking, like all state owned open huts.

Same story as every morning: after the canoe was packed, Kumu made sure he will be onboard as well...

And back at his cosy viewing point again!

 Relaxing sceneries from two of the islands we stopped at. No schedules, no hurry, have a break when ever you feel like.

As you can see, sometimes paddling can be very tiring. Life of a dog; no idea where we're heading, no idea what happens next, just living the very moment.

 There's a slight change of Kumu being a bit interested in the fish being cut. Nice sunny evening at one of our campsites. Just enoug wind to make mosquitoes disappear. Perfect!

Our last campsite was a small isthmus between two bays. We picked the windy side because of the mosquitoes again. Someone else has found this beautiful place too, as there was again a ring of stones.

Graylings cooking by the campfire. Only salt as a spice, cooking slowly on a small fire. Potatoes being boiled in a Trangia cooker.

Endless number of islands to stop at. Here you can have your own peace if you will.

A fungus has formed nature's own smiley on a rock on one of the islands! Not bad, huh!

Knives for sale. ( SOLD! )

Two puukkos and a small leuku for sale. 80CrV2 carbon steel blades. Puukkos have stained curly birch handles, while leuku's is only oiled curly birch. Brass bolster plates. Leather sheaths with wooden liners inside.

This small leuku has a sturdy handle; 119mm long, 33,5mm wide and 23mm thick at max. Pommel 40 x 26,5mm. Blade is 118mm long, thickness 4,5mm at the bolster, getting slightly thinner towards the tip. Blade width 25,5mm at the bolster, 27mm at max. Dark brown sheath.

SOLD.
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Puukko 1   92 x 21 x 4,7mm rhombic cross section blade. 113mm handle, thickness 23mm and width 30,5mm at max. Dark brown sheath.

SOLD.
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Puukko 2    92 x 21,8 x 4,7mm rhombic cross section blade. 114mm long handle, width 30mm and thickness 22,5mm at max. Red brown sheath.

SOLD.

Interested? Send me an email at pasihurttila@gmail.com!