“Rautalampi” literally means “iron pond”, which might refer to an ancient site for the extraction of bog iron, but apparently there is no historical references about it in that area, plus medieval toponyms were different than current ones and Rautalampi municipality was firstly founded in 1561, well beyond bog iron period of use.
In 1654 private soldier Martti Marttinen (Måns Mårtensson) borded the Eagle sailing ship and emigrated from Rautalampi to the colony of New Sweden, in nowadays Delaware.
In 1725 John Morton, Marttinen grandnephew, was born.
At the age of 31 he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly and as a representative of the state assembly he was a delegate to the Stamp Act congress in 1765. He would become Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly and would e also voted to be delegate in both the First and Second Continental Congresses.
On the 2nd of August 1776, during the signing of the Declaration of Independence, he provided the swing vote without which independence would be doubtful.
Then Morton would take on his last role as Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, with the duty of drafting the articles of the Confederation, but he would die the 1st of April 1777, before the completion of the Articles and becoming the first signer to pass away. That’s it for some background about the town and notable people related to it.
We already dived in the past into the history of the namesake puukko, its creation in the 1890s by the hands of Emil Hänninen (1869-1952) and subsequent refining by master engraver Ivar Haring (1887-1954), thanks to a piece written by Jari Liukko and his father Arto who, in the 90s, actually resurrected the Rautalampi puukko, after forty years without a maker crafting it. Links to the puukko history and to Arto’s bio are the followings
https://nordiskaknivar.wordpress.com/2013/02/16/rautalammi-puukko/ https://nordiskaknivar.wordpress.com/2019/05/16/arto-liukko/
blade
length – 97 mm
wideness – 16 mm
thickness – 3,2 mm at the spine; 3,6 mm at bevels junction
tang – 3×3 mm at the pommel
steel – ThysseKrupp 80CrV2
bevels – flat
edge angle – 17°
edge hardness – ~ 61 HRC
handle
length – 101 mm
wideness – 24 mm max.
thickness – 19,5 mm max.
weight
knife – 70 g
with sheath – 100 g
The blade has been forged with hand held hammer from a bar of 80CrV2. It has a bland rhombic section and a ricasso, it’s slightly tapered in height and just a hair in thickness. After annealing and normalization it was heated with blowtorch, quenched in oil and tempered in oven. During the oil dipping the spine has been kept over the surface so to remain softer. Bevels are grinded at 17°, almost to zero.
The handle is made of curly birch with a 34 mm long nickel silver ferrule and a 10 mm long pommel. The wood has been filed so to embed inside the ferrule. The tang is tightly peened over the pommel, keeping the knife together without glue. The pommel has been worked and decorated entirely by file.
The handle is sanded with a fine grit, it’s quite tapered in height and thickness towards the blade, it has an oval section and, though not being particularly thick, fits well in the hand.
The sheath is hand stitched from 1,5 mm thick cowhide. Inside it has an alder liner, carved and sanded. The decorations were partly applied with stamps and partly engraved, when the leather started drying. The belt loop is closed by a nickel steel button, stamped with Liukko initials and attached to a steel ring. The friction retention is excellent.
In use
The puukko is slightly handle heavy, with the point of balance basically overlapping the junction between the ferrule and the wood.
Let’s start with a beech owl. No resistance when roughing out the two main facets, nor when carving the facial discs. The combination of blade thickness and relative wideness allowed for a very fast and easy work of the ear tufts, scooping a concave surface over he head.
There was a slight resistance when cutting all around the shaft to thin it down and break off the own, then just a little effort in planing the base flat.
At the end of the work the edge was pristine, with just a little loss of the shaving bite, but still plenty adequate. Six passes on Work Sharp green compound.
Let’s continue with a plane wood spikkentroll. I felt a hint of resistance while flattening a knot on the back, then no problem in roughing out and refining the hat. The puukko was extremely effective and fast in carving the hat notch, had a hair of resistance in doing the very fist cut to establish the face notch, then nothing to signal in the following carving and deepening of it. There has been some minor resistance while doing the first shaft thinning cuts, progressively disappeared the deeper I got into the wood. Nothing to signal when flattening the base.
A the end of the work the edge was pristine, with some minor bite loss. Fifteen passes on Work Sharp green compound.
Now it’s time for the plane wood wizard. I had a minor resistance while roughing the base facets, disappeared while finishing them. No problem establishing the three V marking the eyes, the nose and the mouth. The tip then worked excellently for engraving the nose profile grooves and well for carving the lower lip. No resistance this time while shaft thinning and no problem while flattening the base.
At the end of the work I found a 6 mm microroll near the handle, nevertheless the edge was still shaving without pressure for all its length. Six passes on fine ceramic rod to re-align the edge, then ten passes on Work Sharp green compound.
Let’s finish with a spatula. At the moment I don’t have my usual silver fir, so I had to opt for ayous, an extremely easy to access (in Italy at least) African straight grained and rather soft wood, comparable to the density and hardness of ash.
Although I always felt a small amount of resistance, compared to fir, the puukko kept its aggressive bite at all times, whatever I was working along the fibers on the spatula spine or against them to shape the front of the paddle. To obtain the lower hollow part of the shaft I did a stop cut midway and worked first from the paddle towards it, almost completely with pull cuts, than from the pommel to the stop cut, again mostly by pulling the knife. That was actually rather long and repetitive, but it allowed to really go the distance in searching, in vain, if the handle was to become uncomfortable. Nothing relevant to signal during finishing cuts and pull cuts to round the corners.
Throughout the work the cuts surface has been glossy and no perceivable bite loss was detected.
At the end the edge was pristine, the shaving bite was just a little less aggressive, but still clearly there. Fifteen passes on BRKT green compound.
Conclusions
Despite being a festive model, the Rautalampi is remarkably practical in wood carving and whittling, thanks to its slimness, excellent in tiny spaces, but paired with enough mass so to avoid any particular struggle when the need come for the removal of bigger amount of material while firstly roughly shaping a project.
It has happened a few times, when the project requested me to frequently shift grip, that the decorative grooves on the pommel felt a bit uneasy on the hand, but that was fast solved gripping the knife just a couple of mm forward. Another thing that may require a little time to get accustomed to is the perfectly symmetrical oval handle which doesn’t give any hint of edge placement to the muscular memory.
The use of ayous wood, new to me, made me slightly cautious about the heat treatment and fact that the puukko is held together solely by peening, but ultimately I was proven wrong and extremely pleased by both.
nordiska knivar 