Thanks Lofty
The photos cleared it up for me. great fit over the wood inside
Peter

Pasi is an outdoorsman of the highest order, he left on a week long hike just as the puukko was posted, and he lives at the edge of the wilderness.

He also forges his own axes, and personally trusts a puukko plus axe as his edged gear in the middle of nowhere.

First three pictures are as summer sets in, perpetual daylight....winter perpetual dark....last shot is the bracing invigorating fall as everything changes color.









Which is to say, he stakes his life on his puukko, leuku, and axes, and so can I.

Will throw out a few more for detailing, fitting, etc. The grind is higher finish than most shots let on.

I really should have included this entire handle making sequence earlier, on the Tuohipää Puukko, or stacked birch bark knife.

He compresses every few leaves, compresses even more, comes back and adds more, compresses more, heats in oven to soften the waxy bark, several more compressions, then lightly peens the pommel into place, then compresses and peens/compress/peens/compress until desired length finally reached.

This series is of the same knife handle, and I think everyone would agree the first shot shows mightly compressed bark compared to the 4 or so loose ones on top, and then the second shot with pommel lightly peened.

Then look at amount of compression (with more still to go) achieved during this in-progress shot.

A pretty solid handle, not always achieved with various makers of such handles, even with glue. I have seen some which were as riffling a deck of cards.

that's awesome.

That particular example seems to have a lightly built tang per customer request. Pasi normally leaves stacked birch bark tangs heavier for hardest use, and you can see from peening of mine own that he does even heavier.

But below is what normally lurks under that stacked bark, and distal taper as blade, so, circa 0.150"-0.200" thick. Quite strong where it matters.

I am sitting here thinking just how much time he spends with scissors cutting strips and squares of bark.

Never did mention weights, or comparative size for the leuku. Firstly, the puukko is 4.5oz bare, heavy for a puukko via stount tang, heavy guage brass, and über-packed birch bark.

I would need step up to one of my Nepali 1/2" thick hand forged kukhuri to get more tougher raw chopping power than the leuku, but would lose knife utility.

The 1-8 is 10oz, the leuku 12oz (about same as 16SP#1), but the leuku only held by a few fingers in back with much longer reach and every bit of mass out front with a swing, allowing the nearly 8.5" blade to do the work.

Rhomboid so no wedging above top of grind line, deeper out front, distal taper, and 80crV2 which is tougher than 5160. A knife a fellah can club like a baby seal, if so inclined.

The distal taper of 0.195"-0.175" an inch back from tip does not show due to spine being thinner than the taper above the grind line by 0.010"-0.015".





Sheathing is impeccable.





Handles on both knives are true ovals which any hen would be proud to produce, narrow dimension at bottom. Needed for orientation in the dark on the guardless knives, if for no other reason.

And the tight fitting welt around that handle at sheath mouth past widest part of handle is for not only snap fit retention, but to seal against rain and snow entering sheath. The birch liners fairly proof against water, but the blade is not.

Beautiful knives!, maybe one day. The method of retention on the pommel reminds me of the way cattarugas attached the pommel on their quartermaster knife,peen the tang, then 2 barbed nails put thru two holes, one on each side of the tang.

The sheath contour fit for those two is amazing.

Brent, it would seem a quite similar idea, Pasi uses coarse thread wood screws to make it fail-safe. I have no idea historically when secondary attachment started, but would guess quite far back in time on a 1000yr old hard hard use knife design, and them coming apart as a nomadic arctic herder a very bad thing. But whether wedges, nails, crosspins, or whatnot, absolutely no idea at all.

As for one of these days, the exchange rate not bad at all, Finland is loaded with educated unemployed folk attending formal schools of native art preservation, much competition for business, and if one can afford any handmade knife at all, one can afford one of these.

HOWEVER, they ain't for everybody, and handling them goes against a lifetime of knife handling habits by folk in the USA, such as if you elevate the tip and not locked into the one secure rear grip on these knives, you WILL need a bandaid or stitches, and maybe orthopaedic surgeon if you stab out of habit. A good friend who knows his way around knives enough to have been an "agricultural inspector" in Vietnam has a pinky which has never worked again after a careless moment with some unknown puukko, and you could not pay the man to touch another one.

Windsor, the fit is via wet molding which is why the plastic wrap of blade and handle. Often, the sheath body was split and carved out antler pinned back together, and the leather neck of sheath shrunk around grooved antler up top and sealing the mouth. The intricate carvings of the Suomi, Sami/Lapp herders marvels of art.

This is a modern artist take on such work, with a step by step available at the nordisknivär site of
https://nordiskaknivar.wordpress.com/2016/03/28/roman-kislitsyn-sami-style-carving-wip/

Even better, hard sheath. That's a bit of a rarity, sadly.

What first entered my brain when I saw them was "wow, nice steam work."