When in Lappland....

[Chris Sheppard]

I was lucky enough to get invited along on a short trip to Swedish Lappland last week and even luckier to get the chance to spend few hours in one of the workshops knife making (well, the handles anyway). Time was against us so no one got as far as the sheath, but everyone's came out better than they were expecting (unfortunately I've not got photos of everyone else's though).

 

Mine was a mixture of Reindeer antler, leather, aluminium, birch and buffalo horn but there were other woods and other papers/leathers and metals we could use if we wanted.

 

Dead simple to do, pretty much a case of making a hole through the middle of each piece to match the tang of the knife blade, and then glue it all together with epoxy and clamp it together over night before roughing it out with a bandsaw, roughing out the shape on the belt sander and then lots and lots of sanding by hand, starting with 80 grit and finishing with 600, before oiling it with whatever you fancy (worktop oil, veggy oil it makes no odds apparently).

 

It's a bit rough in places and there's a couple of cracks in the buffalo horn but it's come out better than I ever hoped it might.

 

Was only there a few days but got treated to the Northern Lights a couple of nights, these were just outside where we were staying in town.

[Mortimer Firewood]

I was lucky enough to get invited along on a short trip to Swedish Lappland last week and even luckier to get the chance to spend few hours in one of the workshops knife making (well, the handles anyway). Time was against us so no one got as far as the sheath, but everyone's came out better than they were expecting (unfortunately I've not got photos of everyone else's though).

 

Mine was a mixture of Reindeer antler, leather, aluminium, birch and buffalo horn but there were other woods and other papers/leathers and metals we could use if we wanted.

 

Dead simple to do, pretty much a case of making a hole through the middle of each piece to match the tang of the knife blade, and then glue it all together with epoxy and clamp it together over night before roughing it out with a bandsaw, roughing out the shape on the belt sander and then lots and lots of sanding by hand, starting with 80 grit and finishing with 600, before oiling it with whatever you fancy (worktop oil, veggy oil it makes no odds apparently).

 

It's a bit rough in places and there's a couple of cracks in the buffalo horn but it's come out better than I ever hoped it might.

 

Was only there a few days but got treated to the Northern Lights a couple of nights, these were just outside where we were staying in town.

 

Nice work and pics

[josharb87]

Awesome pics! Where'd you go?

[Marc Lewis]

That handle looks great chris. Abd that is one of the best pics i have seen of the northern lights.

[Chris Sheppard]

Cheers - can't take the credit for the photos of the lights, that was my wife's skills there.

 

We were up in Arvidsjaur, Josh. We were mostly in the town but did get a ride out to Storforsen before we left. Reckon we'll make our own way back there again sometime in the future though.

[sandspider]

Nice pics. I'd love to go to Scandinavia, but my missus doesn't like the cold!

[Chris Sheppard]

It's not always cold though - we were only an hour south of the arctic circle and we were in T shirts most days

 

I'm sure the Winter's are pretty tough but the twice I've visited so far in the Summers have been similar to the UK.

[delabodge]

sweet,,,on my bucket list