Lapland knife | nordiska knivar

Juha Nikki – Recent Work

Mike has generously prompted and prodded me for an update on what I’ve been working on recently, so here goes. The knives below have been made in the last couple of years. As you can probably work out, I only make a handful of knives a year.

The latest development for me is that I’ve moved down from Northern Finland – Lapland – to the South. Whilst here, I’ve been taught to forge my own blades – something that was a surprisingly easy skill to pick up under good tutorship. Which is not to say I’m suddenly an expert smith or even a smith at all, far from it. I don’t think that I’ll make a habit of forging my own blades. I’ll leave that to the smiths who enjoy it – forging was fun, but I like the other aspects of knife making more. There are plenty of good smiths in Finland I can buy blades from. A lot of them will sell blades despite the fact that we have this weird perception here, where everyone who can forge should apparently make the whole puukko themselves and those who can’t (won’t) should stick to knitting. I don’t quite see the reasoning behind it, but people are entitled to their opinions. I might just knit my next puukko handle…

The little knife above is one which I made years ago for my personal workshop knife – it took about 30 minutes to put a handle to and finish. The blade it by a smith in Wales, called Nic Westermann, and it is a little miracle. If memory recalls, it’s about 2 mm thick and 50 mm long. It’s a laminated blade, with a hard core and flexible cheeks. It was as sharp as a razor, very easy to sharpen and kept it’s edge well. It was so good, I regret that it left my workshop… A reindeer herder in Lapland saw it and decided it would be ideal for ear marking reindeer, to I spruced the knife up a bit and made a sheath and regrettably sold it.

The puukko above is in a kind of Sami style and has a blade by Jukka Hankala – I was very lucky to get it through a contact in France, no less… The timber is birch burl from my (ex) local Lappish forest and there is reindeer antler in the knife and sheath, too. The joints in the handle are spaced with vulcanized fiber. I like to file grooves in the joints between different natural materials, as they are bound to expand and contract in different ways as time goes by. The groove will hopefully prevent any obvious notches or steps appearing at those joints. It’s a small job to do and easy to skip, but i like to think details matter. A matter of personal taste, of course – in other places I like rustic finishes.

This knife has a Damasteel blade by Ralph Etzold. The puukko was shipped to Hawaii, which is why the sheath has in its decorations the leaf of both the Hawaiian and Finnish national trees. The handle is stabilized timber and the sheath is of stitchless variety, as most of mine are these days.

This one was an excercise in design, as the brief from the customer was to make something unusual. The blade is a special commission from Joonas Kallioniemi (again, I was lucky to get such a good and rare blade). The handle is reindeer antler and double dyed Arctic birch burl.

A skinner knife with a Polar stainless steel blade. Tried a bit of more accurate dyeing on the sheath and made an insert of reindeer antler, which is visible through the holes in the sheath.

A puukko with YP Taonta (Puronvarsi / Antti Mäkinen) blade. A stabilized alder handle, with stabilized materials I usually don’t file grooves to the joints as the material is, well… stable!

YP Taonta blade, ash burl and reindeer antler handle – this time with a groove on the vulcanized fibre spacer. Another stitchless sheath.

A stainless blade by Ralph Etzold, reindeer bolster. The timber is highly figured Arctic birch double dyed. Stitchless sheath.

This blue puukko is a very special one for a good friend. There are several connections to Lapland. It has a Damasteel blade made in Lapland by Ralph Etzold. The handle has a real gold nugget panned from a Lappish river, and the sheath has an Amethyst dug with my own hands from a mine in Lapland.

Above a couple of photos from my first forging session on a knife making course.

And finally, above is the first complete knife with a blade forged by myself. The metal parts still need polishing, but it’s more or less there.

Note: Please see the Index page for other articles by Juha Nikki, including how to make a stitchless sheath.

I was recently introduced to the work of Markku Parkkinen by Theo Eichorn who met Markku at Fiskars Puukkopäivät (or knife day). Markku is from Oulu in the region of Northern Ostrobothnia and some of his puukko show the influence of the Lapland style. Please visit his web page at http://markkuparkkinen.blogspot.fi

Thank you for posting here Markku, it’s a pleasure to meet you!

Markku Parkkinen:

“I’m 51-year old knife-maker from Northern Finland.
The zest for making knives started when my former co-worker persuaded me to make my very first knife. I started knife making in 2007. I started to forge blades in 2010. My skills have developed over the years through multiple ways: I have been learning with the professionals of the knife industry, something from the books and a little bit from the internet.

As an essential profession I am a carpenter, but I haven’t been doing carpenter’s work for years. I have been doing woodwork and other types of handcrafting for my whole life. My main hobbies are fly fishing and trolling. I have tied my own flies for fishing from early age and I finished my first fly tying courses in 1974. I have also been making wooden lures from 1978. I have been teaching woodwork, running fly fish lure tying and wooden lure courses for several years now.

I get the inspiration for my knives mainly from Scandinavian and Lapland styles.Sometimes I am inspired by more international knife designs, but I always give my own unique touch to my knife designs.

In Oulu, the place where I live in, the tradition of knife making is relatively weak. A lot of people in our family are gifted in handcrafting, but as far as I know, I am the only one in our family who does blacksmithing.”