First I table sawed the hafts to rough shape using the size suggestions that came from Kestrel.  One is Black Walnut, other is Osage Orange.  Both were harvested from downed trees and have air cured for three to four years.  I put a lot of eyeball effort into getting the grain to where it’d be even across the hafts.

After rough shaping, next step is carving a slot for blade tang.  If you try to do any handle shaping once blade is on permanent, you’ll scratch it certain.  But you need to know blade sits to know how to bring the wood to final shape.  So I routed the slot to see where the blade would sit (w a little bit of chiseling to perfection), then carved/filed/sanded the ends to intended arc.  Also drilled the rivet holes while wood would still sit square on drill press, my first knife I tried to shoot straight after I’d already rounded it, and that didn’t work.

Machines got me quickly and symmetrically to where I could see the shape I was after, but here is where it got gratifying.  Whittled them elliptical with first knife I ever put handles on: a raw blade from Alabama Damascus, and the last of a chunk of Cocobolo I’d had for 25yrs.  Quiet, calm, centering work.

For full power transfer and most control, it’s best to have knife handle completely fill hand, fingertips touching but not pressing into heel.  I used files to flatten out the carved divots, checking size in my hand as I went.  Here’s the standard way to hold them: underhanded grip and work towards you as if it’s a single handled draw knife.

New and exciting step.  Cutler’s Resin: extremely strong and waterproof glue. Every indigenous ppl group on the globe has used roughly the same recipe for 1000s of years.  One part pine rosin, one part sawdust, then about 10% total volume added of beeswax.  Charcoal or rock dust can be used in place of sawdust, they all act as filler as well as impact absorbers.  Seems to me sawdust is springier than either charcoal or rock dust, so I went that direction.  Pure pine rosin is hard to find.  After a previous summer of digging a bit of out 4-5 trees every 4-5 days and barely getting a golf ball of dirty gook, I bought refined stuff from Diamond G Forest products out of Georgia.

I melted the rosin at 160deg, then blended in sawdust until it looked lumpy when stirred and smooth when still.  Added wax until it no longer shattered when cool.  Looks good enough to eat.  None of it’s toxic, but bind you up pretty good I’m sure.

Applying.  The Cutler’s Resin holds when hot but clumps when cooled, and it cools fast once out of the heat.  I warmed the blades and hafts in the oven at 170 so the Cutler’s would stay soft while I aligned the blades in their slots.  As long as I quit work on days the temperature is over 150, blades should stay stuck.

Pinned and oiled.  The copper is just plain copper, you can dig that out of the ground anywhere.  Blade side I tapped ends flat w a ball peen hammer.  Wood side I filed, on the Osage the copper is almost softer.  For oil, I got raw Linseed oil from Solvent Free Paints, with none of the heavy toxins corporations add and rename it ‘boiled.’  Oiling wood is fun, more like softening leather than painting on a protection.  “Oil keeps the life in the wood,” James Easter says.  The first few coats were mixed 50/50 w turpentine from Diamond G to help the oil penetrate, then a few of straight oil.  Trick there is to wipe on the turpentine blend until the wood doesn’t draw it in anymore, then move onto straight oil.  Usually two to three applications suffices.  Somewhere after losing count at nine coats on the Walnut I gave up, and went to straight oil, but the Osage stopped soaking coats at two.  When it comes to wood finishes, there is Glow, Gleam, and Glisten.  I’d say the Walnut glows, the Osage gleams.  If I’d wanted Glisten, I’d have shellacked them.  But I more want Grip.  Linseed oil retains the feel, and look, of natural wood.

After making and using Crooked Knives, I will agree with Henri Vaillancourt: if you have a crooked knife, you can make a canoe.  There have been myriads of occasions when I have been frustrated in an operation by the tool any modern IndoEuro would first consider using, then changed to a CrookedKnife and solved the difficulty.  From removing vast amounts of material to very small precise amounts of material.  From seeking large flat surfaces to seeking intricate and odd.  I'll be screaming inside: 'aw, this is taking so long!  And I'm so stressed it won't come out right!' and I'll reach for the Crooked Knife... and be back in that wonderful space of watching shapes I hope for reveal themselves under my fingers.