John Dunkle, knife maker, has developed a special process for heat treating and tempering a “premium super steel” in his latest line of knives. This new knife possesses super and long lasting sharpness that requires less stropping between long periods of carving time. Read the rest of this entry »

The photo above shows the lay out of the presentation box for the Helvie fund raiser for Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.   The cover of the box is decorated with wood burned art work done by Rich Smithson of the art drawing of artist Don Stephenson as displayed in the photo below. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello Carvers! HELVIE KNIVES proudly presents……The 3rd Annual Basswood Knife Carving Competition! Read the rest of this entry »

The WOOD BEE CARVER is primarily a knife carver who carves in a Whittle-Carving style. The knife is the favorite carving tool and the favorite knife is the one in the carver’s hand at the time. The side effect of this love affair with knives is that there is a passion for collecting and reshaping and refurbishing knives to be used in the carving process. Read the rest of this entry »

Rich Smithson of HELVIE KNIVES has wood  burned the art work of Don Stephenson on the cherry wood lid for the box that will contain twenty one of the WOOD BEE CARVER Signature Series knives made by HELVIE KNIVES along with an original carving by Don Mertz of a Whittle Doodle. Visit the previous postings in this blog about the HELVIE fund raising raffle for Juvenile Diabetes Research and how one can become a part of this raffle. Read the rest of this entry »

The HELVIE Whittle Doodle was carved to be part of the Helvie Fund Raising for Childhood Diabetes Research as described in the previous posting on March 16.  The first series of photographs are a panoramic view of the entire carving with its finished stain of artist oil paint Raw Sienna thinned with boiled linseed oil followed with a brushed on application of Deft, a brushing lacquer.

The next series of photographs depict the various sections of the Whittle Doodle along with the WOOD BEE CARVER Signature Knives used to carve each segment. Read the rest of this entry »

HELVIE WHITTLE-DOODLE composite photograph that shows a panoramic view of the Whittle Doodle carved for the Helvie Fund Raiser.  The Whittle Doodle is two inches square and eight inches tall carved using all of the Wood Bee Carver Signature Series knives designed by Don Mertz and made by Helvie Knives with Rich Smithson doing the wood burning art on cherry wood handles.