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I love to make, use, and give away puukkos. As such, I finished up another round of puukkos for some of my Yupik friends in Alaska to celebrate the birth of their new son and to honor the recent loss of loved ones. They're made from an array of figured/burled walnut, flamed maple, birch, cocobolo, whitetail deer antler, figured sycamore, and brass. I finished them with several coats of Danish oil for color/depth and then applied/buffed out two finish coats of Rennaissance Wax for the protective layer. All feature the traditional wooden sheath and wet molded leather outer found on Scandinavian puukko sheaths. The two-piece sheath with the bookmatched walnut and inlaid antler lower is a nod to the Sami style of sheath making (although in wood, not the traditional reindeer bone/antler).
The larger blades are both 4" Morakniv Classic No. 1 blades in carbon that I sanded and forced a used/protective patina on by wrapping them with a cloth strip soaked in apple cider vinegar. The maple handled knife also features a bit of traditional kolrosing on the antler space/butt cap, albeit crude by Scandinavian standards. (But hey, I kolrosed a puukko with a puukko, so that counts for something.) The smaller blade is a 3" Polar made in collaboration by Brisa and Lauri. I also gave it a well-used look with some random hand sanding and a vinegar soaked cloth wrap. This shorter blade, being thicker in width, allowed me to thread the tang and secure the handle with a nut, which is hidden beneath the butt cap.
These will be used hard in the field on everything from moose to salmon to reindeer (which the raise) to caribou (which they hunt) to seal. I'm looking forward to seeing where they venture. Thanks for looking! (The pics may be a bit compressed and lacking in sharpness, but the knives are indeed scary SHARP!
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The larger blades are both 4" Morakniv Classic No. 1 blades in carbon that I sanded and forced a used/protective patina on by wrapping them with a cloth strip soaked in apple cider vinegar. The maple handled knife also features a bit of traditional kolrosing on the antler space/butt cap, albeit crude by Scandinavian standards. (But hey, I kolrosed a puukko with a puukko, so that counts for something.) The smaller blade is a 3" Polar made in collaboration by Brisa and Lauri. I also gave it a well-used look with some random hand sanding and a vinegar soaked cloth wrap. This shorter blade, being thicker in width, allowed me to thread the tang and secure the handle with a nut, which is hidden beneath the butt cap.
These will be used hard in the field on everything from moose to salmon to reindeer (which the raise) to caribou (which they hunt) to seal. I'm looking forward to seeing where they venture. Thanks for looking! (The pics may be a bit compressed and lacking in sharpness, but the knives are indeed scary SHARP!
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Attached Files
) It's rewarding for me that a knife design honed and perfected by one arctic people (the Sami) for their particular environment is seen as equally beneficial and well-suited by my Alaskan arctic friends (who are Yupik).
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