Fifty years ago when I began carving seriously. I began using the knife as the carving tool by harking back to boyhood days of whittling with a pocket knife.

At that time there was no readily available source for carving tools other than mail order catalogs.  There were few carving clubs, nor few shows, nor tool vendors, nor carving magazines and the only source for books was the public library.  Chip Chats was the only publication that did mention the few carving shows, a few seminars and a few new carving books that were just beginning to be published. The public library was the source for researching what books were available to learn about carving.  Occasionally a carving article would appear in a Popular Mechanic type of magazine. Harold Enlow was just beginning publishing his popular carving books which began many new authors and books to give encouragement to the re-surging interest in wood carving.

In those early days of the budding hobby a lot was learned by trial and error experimenting coupled with an active imagination developed from younger years of playing with imaginary friends.  Imagination has played an active place in the creative development and learning which led to the coining of my motto: “Would be carvers would be carvers if they would carve wood,” and thusly, the WOOD BEE CARVER was born.

The common and familiar pocket knife contained a pen blade, a clip blade, a sheep foot blade, a spear blade and a spey blade. The pen, spear, and clip blade were commonly used for whittling purposes.  Sharpening was done by rubbing flat across a “whet stone” or abrasive stone either in circles or back and forth across the surface of the sharpening stone.  Observations of old timers sitting around rubbing the pocket knife blade on a sharpening stone in circles, figure eights or back and forth action resulted in a wearing away of the cutting edge making the reshaping of the blade smaller and thinner.  For example, the common pen blade was reshaped by repeated sharpening to become a straight cutting edge similar to a wharncliffe blade shape by removing the curved profile of the pen blade.

Trial and error attempts at sharpening a blade taught lessons learned by doing, in that if concentrating on the bevel of the cutting edge to a twelve degree angle would leave the sides of the blade above the bevel fat and wide requiring more force in the slicing action to execute the cut. However, if the side of the blade above the bevel was thinned down, then the blade would slice easier with less friction due to the thickness of the blade.

Eventually it was learned to use progressive finer grit of stone in a progression to the super fine abrasive stones.  The progression began with a medium grit carborundum stone, followed by a fine grit India Stone, next a super fine grit Arkansas stone followed by a leather strop impregnated with abrasive power. The carborundum stone was used to reshape while sharpening to created a burr edge all along the cutting edge of the blade. While working towards the burr edge the side of blade was rubbed till side was flat all the way down to the burr edged cutting edge. Laying the blade flat on the abrasive stone and rubbing it flat back and forth on one side and then the other will eventually flatted the blade and create a burr edge. Moving to the fine India stone, the same action was used making the burr edge finer and smoothing out the scratches on the sides of the blade.  The back and forth rubbing action was continued on the Arkansas stone with the burr edge getting very small. Finally, using a leather strop, lay the blade flat on the leather with medium pressure pull the blade with the burr edge trailing across the leather.  At the end of the pull, pick up the blade off the leather, return to starting point and repeat the stropping action. After several strops reverse the process by turning the blade over, lay flat on leather and with medium pressure push the blade forward with the burr edge trailing and at the end of the push, pick blade up, return to starting point and repeat the process several times.  Repeat the stropping action on both side until the burr edge has been rubbed away.  Test sharpness by making slicing cuts across the end grain of a basswood block.  Trial and error will teach what feels to be about right.  The purpose of keeping the blade flat on the strop is to polish the sides of the blade as well as the bevel behind the burr edge being polished in the same action.  If, however, one tried to concentrate of stropping the bevel only, the result will be rounding over the cutting edge.  This was the process of hand sharpening and stropping learned in the trial and error days early on.  Later on this journey the stones were replaced with diamond sharpening hones in progressive grits of medium, fine, extra fine and then leather strop.

Why not use a motorized sharpening system rather than hand sharpening?

(DISCLOSURE: “The only right way is what works for you.”)

Hand sharpening is a pre-conditioning of the hand of the carver getting used to how the knife feels in the hand while being sharpened to be an extension of the carver’s hand when it comes to the carving action. Hand sharpening is a slow and precise process for which the carver appreciates that knife’s slicing action as a well-tuned cutting edge that has been conditioned by the carver that will “work” for the carver because it is the carver’s own finesse worked into the sharpening.  The motorized sharpening system is too quick, removes too much metal unevenly and requires a “special touch and feel” to sharpen correctly and requires a knack only learned over timely machine work. (see DISCLOSURE above.)

NEXT came the awareness of the difference between a straight cutting edge of the wharncliffe blade shape and the curved cutting edge of the curved-up point of the tip of a blade. The observation came in the awareness of the purpose of the cutting edge whose teeth work best in a slicing action like to slice a tomato or to slice bread.  Forcing the cutting edge of the blade in a downward action like a wedge cut will break the wood fibers rather than to separate the fibers in a slicing of the cutting edge through the wood.

The two photos above are to illustrate a straight blade slices best when the cutting edge is at a skewed angle like the guillotine.  The floor saw with it curved cutting edged teeth was used to cut a floor board when only hand tools we available and is an illustration that the teeth of the curved cutting edge of a curved blade slices with ease because the teeth are always touching the wood in the slicing action.

A straight cutting edged blade slices best when the blade is skewed at an angle as it is sliced through the wood. A curved cutting edge is permanently skewed as the blade is curved making it always being in a slicing mode no matter now it is used.  The test example is to slice across the end grain with a straight edged wharncliffe blade (common carving knife) which has to be skewed at an angle to slice across the end grain.  A curved cutting edged blade will slice across the end grain much easier by its design of the cutting edge having a built-in skewed action.

In those early days fifty years ago, searches for old pocket knives in junk stores and flea markets resulted in a side track hobby of modifying blades in old pocket knives into carving knives.  One of the first find was for fifteen cents was a true “junker” of a pocket knife in that the blade was worn down  from repeated sharpening and the spring was worn so that the blade did not sit tightly in the body of the pocket knife.  The knife was taken apart to rescue the blade and with a little tinkering of bending an old brass auto key around the tang of the blade, pinning it together and then affixing it into a small wooden handle. The small blade was shaped with a curved cutting edge which was simply re-sharpened by hand using a combination of whet stone to make it into a carving knife. Several simple and small objects were carved using this “homemade” carving knife in which the blade carved nicely but the handle was too small.  In later years that knife has had its handle reshaped and well as the blade reshaped as seen in the photo at the top of this posting.  That knife became a favorite and also became a point of reference for the beginning of discovering that the curved cutting edged blade is the most efficient for it slicing qualities and versatility in reaching into tight areas of a carving project.

The two pocket knives pictured above were early attempts to rebuild pocket knives.  The dark handled knife replaced a missing blade with a large spear point blade and wooden handle replaced the broken and missing original handle.  The tiger maple handled knife was remade replacing blades from a junk body into a better body whose blades were missing.  While the result was a fun experience, it was labor intensive and was chalked up to an experience.  Rescuing blades out of broken pocket knives and inserting them into a wooden handle was more efficient for the making of a functional carving knife.

[Click on photos to enlarge.]

During the first half of this fifty-year journey most of the blades were reshaped and sharpened into the wharncliffe blade shape.  The decision to do so came about by my “naivety” of being a novice carver for when I was able to join a carving club I saw the kind of knife other carvers were using which as one with a straight cutting edge or wharncliffe blade.  I learned to use the wharncliffe blade most of the time but on occasion would pick up that original curved cutting edge knife and really liked the way it sliced through the wood, but what did I know, everybody else used the common carving knife. Then it dawned on me that the one rule that matters is “the right way is if it works for you.”  More and more then, I began to experiment with reshaping blades with the curved cutting edge and field tested them in carving projects.

The reshapes that worked began to shape a pattern for tweaking the basic concept of the scimitar blade shape that has a curved cutting edge and the back edge mirrors the reversed of that shape like a quarter moon. Next came the design of extending the tang of the blade as it comes out of the handle in various lengths till it reaches the business end of the curved cutting edge.

Sometimes this shape becomes a serpentine scimitar with the cutting edge sitting below an imaginary straight line coming out of the handle. Sometimes the tip end of the blade becomes a soft point instead of a needle point.  Sometimes this “soft point” turns up at the tip end and sometimes it has a point cutting edge that is rounded like a finger nail at the tip end.  Note the respective photo illustrations of these various blade shape.

For nine years (2011-2019) I designed Signature Series knives in cooperation with Helvie Knives of a variety of these blade shapes. At the end of 2019 I retired from teaching and doing shows and no longer sell Signature Knives although some of them are available on order from Helvie Knives.

I still make for my own personal use “Other Knives” as a way to continue to Stay Sharp and Never Dull in my side track hobby with knives.

The Wood Bee Carver, in sharing this Be Sharp and Never Dull knife journey, encourages carvers to learn to do your own hand sharpening and if inclined, to shape carving blades to fit your own experimenting with blades that will work for you and expand your carving experience.

The photos below will show the minimum of tools used primarily by hand to learn the “Slow and Easy” approach to accomplish the task with a “feel” for the end result.  A 40-X-1-inch belt sander is used for shaping purposes along with a Dremel with a drum sander and a hand cranked grinding wheel remembering to dip the blade in water to keep it cool so as not draw away its temper and hardness. A variety of diamond hones are illustrated along with leather strop that are used for sharpening and tuning up the cutting edge. Learning to shape and sharpen the blade of a carving knife will widen the carving experience to new avenues of creative enjoyment

The final photo is a copy of the certificate given to each student of Whittle-Carving instruction over the years while the Wood Bee Carver was teaching. The certificate itself contains instructional aids including the two pocket knife blades illustrated to emphasizes to “slice with the cutting edge” be it a straight or a curved shaped blade.  BE SHARP AND NEVER DULL.

Note: to visit the first posting on this subject click on BE Sharp # 1