Blue Spruce Hand Forged Draw Knife (is this correct)?

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Blue Spruce offered a limited run for a Fine draw knife and I ordered one.

https://bluesprucetoolworks.com/products/drawknife


Lets start with three pictures of what I received

blue_spruce_draw_knife_cocobolo_handles_01.jpg
blue_spruce_draw_knife_cocobolo_handles_02.jpg
blue_spruce_draw_knife_cocobolo_handles_03.jpg

This should be the Cocobolo handle, but it looks to me like it is the African Blackwood. Any opinions on this?

Understand that I have never in my life used a draw knife and I still have not, but I intend to give it a go. Apart from wondering about the handle, I noticed that in their youtube video about this "fine" draw knife, the knife is shown being used with bevel up and bevel down. That got my attention. Can you do this with a regular draw knife? I assume that in general you cannot because of the angle of the handles, but I am just guessing.

I also noticed that the advertised version says "blue spruce" on the blade. Mine does not. I found that interesting.

[Jim Koepke]

Can you do this with a regular draw knife?

Yep

jtk

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Yep

jtk

Interesting. I would not have guessed that. Thanks for the reply.

Ironically, my next door neighbor gave me a "normal" drawknife just last weekend. Obviously I have not had time to give that a go. Her Father died some time back and she offered pretty any tool that he had that I want. I have zero experience with any of these. I wanted this fine one since I have some thoughts of trying to make a spoon or perhaps taking some bumps out of a walking stick.

Maybe I need to make one of the stools to hold wood while I work it with one of these. I think I have seen plans to make a small one that attaches to a bunch; called a "pony" maybe.

[Mike King]

A great way to learn how to use the drawknife is to take a Windsor chair class. You will also learn to use a travisher, one of the coolest tools around...

Mike

[Scott Winners]

I have a similiar modern Swedish drawknife (with plastic handles), Mora brand I think, that can be used either side up.

[Michael Cuthriell]

The handle angle dictates bevel up or down, but either works. Curtis Buchanan has a sharpening video that will tell you what you need to do extra for using bevel up.

[Joe A Faulkner]

You’ve gone an opened a Pandora’s box. Now you need a shaving horse, a few spoke shaves, a reamer, scorp and travisher. Don’t ask me how I Know. Oh and a froe, and a decent carving axe, a nice bit and brace, maybe a lathe, steamer box, small,parts kiln. Check out Curtis Buchanan videos on Windsor or democratic chairs. Enjoy.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

This should be the Cocobolo handle, but it looks to me like it is the African Blackwood. Any opinions on this?

So no opinions on what wood the handle is?

[Bob Betker]

Andrew: It is hard to tell from the photos you posted but I got the Cocobolo version as well and mine looks like that. This patch of Cocobolo seems to have more of a brownish hue than usual, less red in it.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Andrew: It is hard to tell from the photos you posted but I got the Cocobolo version as well and mine looks like that. This patch of Cocobolo seems to have more of a brownish hue than usual, less red in it.

Thanks Bob. In the grand scheme of things I know it does not really matter, but, at least in the photos that they posted, their Cocobolo is a much lighter color. I do not have any experience with either wood. Given that you also have a similar color I will assume that it is simply related to the batch that they have.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

The handle angle dictates bevel up or down, but either works. Curtis Buchanan has a sharpening video that will tell you what you need to do extra for using bevel up.

I have not yet watched the videos, but here are links to part 1 and part 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R8FpLPx4wo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcjqp6dpkRs

[Jesse Charbneau]

I wasn't lucky enough to obtain one of the BlueSpruce drawknives, but have a set of their dovetail chisels with cocobolo handles. They do seem to darken over time as well, so there is that :-)

Jess