Now all may be revealed. Christmas is over. I have to catch up on my Christmas projects. The first one to appear will be KZ's Ulu. Now an Ulu is a Northern Native knife. I am appalled that I can't give you a label, but I have posted on it before. I now have an "ulu" label. I make my ulus out of old circular saw blades. I will have to repeat some pictures of the manufacturing process. I take an old circular saw blade and cut it into fourths, first removing the teeth. For this I use a circular saw with an abrasive cutoff blade. I cut the saw into quarters, much like a pie.
Now we have to grind the edge on the thing. For this, I use my wet grinder and my homemade ulu-grinding jig.
The jig allows me to rotate the proto-ulu pie slice. If you did not do that, you would simply grind a flat ulu. Not at all what you want. So grind and rotate. Use the angulometer to get the bevel angle, in my case 25 degrees.
Next problem is heat-treating. Circular saw blades are built to take abuse, since that is the fate of a mass-produced saw blade. But as a result they are almost impossible to sharpen. Not what we want. We want to put a real edge on these things. So what we want to do is soften it up a bit. My usual procedure is a propane torch. But an ulu is much too large for this treatment. So I used the kitchen stove instead. A lot more BTU than a propane torch.
Here, I hold the edge of the ulu in the convenient circular shape of the stove burner. Aluminum foil helps keep the heat away from the body of the ulu. I want it to blue, but not to anneal. Tougher that way, you see. I want to temper the edge to "straw" as the books put it. Straw indeed. Looks golden yellow to me. When it gets to the desired color, you quench it in a butter tub full of water. The ulu is still held in its grinding jig. This makeshift arrangement actually worked. I got a tempered edge and a blue body.
Next step is to put on a handle.
In KZ's case, there is a totem pole handle carved from an oddly-shaped birch sapling. I created her totem pole. This was a straightforward piece of carving; I enjoyed it as a big change from all this metalworking stuff. Note the edge protector. Very important to have an edge protector.
The last step is honing the thing. I use my Lee Valley diamond hone for this job. It may be tedious but it is necessary. A dull tool is dangerous, period. I was very pleased with the bluing on the upper part of the ulu. Exactly what I wanted.
I made a similiar ulu for Fluffy, but I did a turned handle for it. I turned it on Polecat, my trusty pole (bungee) lathe which I documented before. Fun. Lovely turning, too. I forgot to take a picture. I think making ulus is a great game. Furthermore ulus are useful. I chop almost everything with a ulu except when I emulate Jaques Pepin. Then I use a 30 cm chef's knife. That is a better slicer, but the ulu is a better chopper any day. Those Inuits know what they are doing. In Point Barrow they flense whales with ulus; only much bigger than mine.
By the way, the pattern I use is the so-called "Fish River" pattern. I do it because it is less work than other patterns. If you google on ulus you will find various learned works on ulus. Happy ulu new year!
Twisted Tree Heartrot Hill Revisited
19 hours ago
ever make one out of a plane old hand saw? much thinner for sure but I would think it would be stiff enough......sure would be easier to make
ReplyDelete