“Be Sharp and Never Dull” is a description of the Wood Bee Carver’s journey of expanding the wood carving journey with the side track aspect of carving related to carving knives, primarily the design and development of “Other Knives” for personal use.  Learning to sharpen as well a reshape a blade for personal use has been a beneficial enhancement of the carving experience. This knife experience has evolved in the trial and error process of experimenting resulting in better understanding of the slicing function of the cutting edge of the knife blade as well a designing blades shaped for versatility during the carving process.

The major discovery of this evolution over a fifty year journey has been the benefit of the curved cutting edge of the blade in producing the slicing action that is more effective than the straight cutting edge of the common carving knife. The second discovery through experimentation has been the angled shape of the blade in combination with the basic concept of the scimitar (quarter moon) shape of the convex cutting edge shape mirrored with the concave shape of the back edge of the blade. The third discovery is the back edge of the blade angled down towards the tip end of the curved cutting edge that angles down a twelve degree slope. This angling down of the back edge of the blade changes the approach of the cutting edge as it enters into the wood at the beginning of the slicing cut.  When the back edge remains basically straight as it comes out of the handle, the tip of the blade is at a higher approach point effecting the feel of the beginning approach to the slice into the wood.

[Click on photos to enlarge]

The final discover relates to the formation of the Serpentine Blade Design. The Serpentine Blade Design is a scimitar curved cutting edged blade that has a serpentine shape that snakes its way into the slicing action during the carving process. A synonym for serpentine includes ~ winding, windy, zigzag, zigzagging, twisting, twisty, turning, meandering, curving, sinuous, snaking, snaky, tortuous.

Serpentine blade places the cutting edge below the center of gravity – imagine a straight line coming out of the handle through the blade as being the equator making the curvature of the serpentine blade drop below the center line. The two photos above show the before blades as they come out of the handle of top knives and the bottom knives show the after reshaping of Serpentine Scimitar blade sitting below imaginary center line.

In the photos below the tooth pick represents an imaginary straight line coming out of the handle of the knife.  The serpentine shape of the blade places the cutting edge below this imaginary straight line allowing the cutting edge portion of the blade to allow for a comfortable approach to make slicing cuts in the wood being carved.  The variety of the serpentine blade shapes illustrated in the photos suggests various approaches of the cutting edge to a variety of areas being carved.

The next series of photos are of additional examples of the various size and shape of the Serpentine Scimitar blade design.

The final photo shows additional shaping designs for the tip end of the Serpentine Scimitar blade designs.

Click on the link Be Sharp # 1 to follow the trail for all three of the Be Sharp and Never Dull informational postings of this theme.