Tommi Mäkelä puukko

Tommi Mäkelä 

death metal guitarist, knifemaker and former computer dealer, has been also Lauri Metallin Oy production manager since 2014. He lives and works in Kauhava, central Finland.

blade

length - 79 mm

wideness - 22 mm

thickness - 3,25 mm

steel - ThyssenKrupp 80CrV2

grind - flat

edge angle - 17,5°, small microbevel

edge hardness - ~ 64 HRC

handle

length - 120 mm

wideness - 30 mm max.

thickness - 23 mm max.

weight

knife - 90 g

with sheath - 140 g

The blade, a reprofiled Lauri PT, is tapered in height.. Compared to the stock model the bevels were thinned down to 17,5°, then adding a small micrbevel. As with all PT blades the bevels underwent the induction hardening, perfected by metallurgist Juha Perttula, getting a 64 HRC edge and a 53 HRC spine.

The handle is crafted from a piece of cross cut birch. The tang is epoxy glued and 17 mm from the blade there are two birch bark flaps acting as spacer between the two blocks of the wood. It’s sanded with a fine grit and tapered, in height and thickness, from the center towards the blade; it has a mild teardrop section, quite big proportions and fills well the hand.

The sheath is hand stitched from 1,8 mm thick leather. Inside it has a birch liner. The belt loop is closed by a steel rivet and held to the sheath with a steel ring. The retention is excellent.

In use

Despite the generally big proportions, it feels light and just a hair handle heavy.

Before starting, since the edge was a little rough from the belt sander, I stropped it with Bark River green compound (#6000).

As always, let’s start with plane wood spikkentrolls. The wood was then seven months seasoned.

During the carving of the first one I felt some resistance only when cutting against the fibers of a knot, while thinning the diameter of the branch to break the troll free.

After this the shaving bite was gone only in the few cm of edge used to work on the knot. Twelve passes on green compound were enough.

Nothing particular to signal during the carving of the second one. In both cases the blade left a clean cut surface, even though not absolutely smooth.

At the end the edge had few tiny asperity that I could feel only trailing the nail, but couldn’t see with the bare eye. The bite next to the handle was again lower. Five passes with black compound and ten on green.

Let’s continue with the six months seasoned poplar wizard. 

The puukko has kept a good bite and proved itself a fine planer. While carving the notches to mark the face features the curve portion of the edge struggled a little to engage the fibers, then going deep after the first cut. The tip maybe just a little too thick for extremely fine works, but I managed to engrave the nose profile and carve the lower lip without particular problems. No problems also in cutting it free from the branch and flatten the base.

The handle has always been comfortable and fairly agile.

At the end the edge was pristine, the shaving bite was just a hair less aggressive, but still able to shave well. Twenty passes of green compound.

Let’s finish with the eighteen months old silver fir spatula.

The puukko has immediately changed pace, being clearly more in its place here than on the, nevertheless good, previous projects. All the roughing cuts were very fast and easy, the knife maintained throughout an excellent bite and good agility, never struggling when carving down grain or tangentially to it. I felt the only minor resistance when cutting against the grain to create the lower curve of the shaft. The finishing cuts too where easy and quick, without troubles cutting down and against the grain. I felt the handle to be “stiff” in the palm only once, when I was pulling to puukko towards me, using the thumb as fulcrum to do some little shape tuning. I solved this by simply pulling the puukko towards me and having the spatula head rested against my chest. All the cuts left a glossy finish. At the end the edge was pristine and bite unchanged.

 

Conclusions

Short bladed, but thanks to the fairly big handle and particularly acute blade geometry, it’s indeed quite powerful. The stock blade can easily perform general tasks too, while reprofiled is essentially a carver. Some more thickness tapering could probably give even better performances. The heat treatment, even though taking the steel to its extreme, didn’t show brittleness problems, as I was actually expecting from 80CrV2 and still kept its ease of sharpening. I llked the handle, since it allows a good nimbleness, though it might be a little too big for tiny hands users.