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Sköll - a Knife in Ringerike Style WIP


Ondřej Borský

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Good evening everyone!

This is the latest knife I am making, and I´d like to share the process with you :)  I decided to focus more on making knives as a whole, not only blades. That is not to say I am stopping blades, but I deffinitely want to finish more pieces

It all started with me having a blade I really liked, and a piece of curly maple:19055637_1929732517271133_1240258609610495890_o.jpg

I really wanted to do something in Urnes style which... I didn´t :D Somehow I am always drawn to the Ringerike style! In this case, the brooch below, particulary the beast portraited there, caught my eye...

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And so it began... I am still uncertain as to what the animal is, but for me, it resembles a wolf... I started drawing it, to get the details as close to the original as I am able. I changed one thing - I really didn´t like the legs of the beast in the brooch, so I looked at other ringerike animals and changed them a littlebit... Also, I tuned the tail a bit so that it fits the frame of the handle better:

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I decided to carve the beast first, it being the most difficult for me to carve, and therefore the most likely to be ruined. So, if there should be a ruinage, i wanted it to be as close to the beginning of the handle as possible... but, everything seems okay (well, there are always the little things that bug you, aren´t there :D ) and i finished the main carving just as the sun was setting... I found it rather poetical... and then I remebered a story from Northern Mythology, about a warg who chases after the sun, named Sköll. The dusk came, and the warg appeared in the handle... I ensnared it! No more chasing the sun, now it will serve the user of the knife!

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I apologize for the bad uality of the last shot...

 

Well, I wanted to make sure that Sköll will not break out of his prison, so I added cage around him (also, there is a flattened and ground piece of wrought I intend to use for a buttcap):IMG_0545.JPG

And this is where I finished today - now I am grinding micrometer after micrometer so that the buttcap fits as well as possible :). Yeah, I could have done it before the carving, but I was never much of a planner :D :

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Goodnight!

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Nice Ondrej (sorry, can't do the accent on the r). The blade, of course, is very nice but the handle and carving really complement and complete it. Personally I also prefer the leg design you used compared to that on the brooch.

"The way we win matters" (Ender Wiggins) Orson Scott Card

 

Nos qui libertate donati nescimus quid constat

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9 hours ago, Ondřej Borský said:

And this is where I finished today - now I am grinding micrometer after micrometer so that the buttcap fits as well as possible :). Yeah, I could have done it before the carving, but I was never much of a planner :D :

I had a chuckle at this. No matter how carefully I try to plan out a project there is often some little area that I have to "work back".

Von Gruff

http://www.vongruffknives.com/

The ability to do comes with doing.

 

 

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6 hours ago, Garry Keown said:

 

I had a chuckle at this. No matter how carefully I try to plan out a project there is often some little area that I have to "work back".

Me too!

Nice one, Ondrej.  B)

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Love the knife and the story! Planning uh.................yes sir, I always plan...................on how to get out of the corner I worked myself into!

My wife tells me after 40 years I am getting much better at it!!  Image result for emoji for shock

C Craft Customs ~~~ With every custom knife I build I try to accomplish three things. I want that knife to look so good you just have to pick it up, feel so good in your hand you can't wait to try it, and once you use it, you never want to put it down ! If I capture those three factors in each knife I build, I am assured the knife will become a piece that is used and treasured by its owner! ~~~ C Craft

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Hello gentlemen! So,  I finished it today :) I pre-dremeled the lines, just to have it drawn (I don ´t like using pencil) and then I carved everything by hand using a V-chisel :)

I patinized the whole handle, and then sanded it... the dye created a bit of a blurry effect, which makes, at least in my eyes, look it a bit older...

Please, tell me your thoughts!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you!

Today, things moved forward a bit. The leather for the sheath has been formed, plus I prepared, sanded and carved a reindeer antler plate that will serve as one of the mounts. It is carved in the same - ringerike - style, this time I took and fitted the design from a weather vane found on Gotland

 

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Very nice work!  The handle really came alive when you stained it.

George Ezell, bladesmith

" How much useful knowledge is lost by the scattered forms in which it is ushered to the world! How many solitary students spend half their lives in making discoveries which had been perfected a century before their time, for want of a condensed exhibition of what is known."
Buffon


view some of my work

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