Quick Project- Hook Knife

Ever since I saw Robin Wood's work a few years ago, I've wanted to do something as simple as split up some birch logs and carve a few spoons, a few things stood in my way at the time, not having nice and recently felled wood, and not exactly having all the right tools. Well I started to fix the latter today, I made a hook knife, which is used to carve the bowl of the spoon and work into other curved areas on woodenware.


Everything starts with a sketch, in unfolded and bent side view.

After cutting out a rectangle and grinding the profile it was time to cut the bevels. The best way to hold small parts like these is to attach them to a board, stick, refrain from parting from the parent bar etc. seeing as I had 1" wide O1 to work with I mounted it to some scrap ash for filing.

The technique used for filing is Drawfiling. This is accomplished by holding a file perpendicular with both hands, with the tang facing the right and pushing the file. Used this way the teeth act similarly to a card scraper and make smooth surfaces. I like finish filing my bevels this way.

After annealing the thin O1 is hammered at a black heat over a wooden dowel into the arc shown here. I've only got a few photos and a rough idea how these are used so I'm guessing pretty hard on the shapes and sizes here.

After the oil quench and tempering we have a dark straw color, this leaves a harder blade, but I think it will hold up okay, time will tell.


I have a fair amount of grinding to do on the inside, I was cautious about how much material to leave for the heat treating, now even that thin line of hard steel is seeming like a mountain of work. Tomorrow morning I hope to finish it up and get a razor on it.