Roselli Carpenter Knife Review

Roselli Carpenter Knife Review by Federico Buldrini

I thought I’d like to review a couple of mass produced puukkos for our readers willing to try the style before making the step towards a proper custom hand forged one.
In my opinion Roselli and YP-Taonta knives are the best suited for this, since basically all the other mass produced puukkos uses stamped blades made by Lauri Metallin Oy, therefore without putting any effort in the blade.
Also both Roselli, but especially YP-Taonta products see some real forging.

(Please see https://nordiskaknivar.wordpress.com/2013/10/13/h-roselli/ to read more about Roselli and the Carpenter knife.)

Introduction

H. Roselli Oy is located 1 km out of Harmoinen, at the end of a small road named after the founder, 175 km N of Helsinki.Today it’s famous for the production of mass produced tools involving some forging, for the use of the self developped UHC steel and for the particular character of the owner. This last factor made it difficult to obtain information.

Self taught, Roselli started working in ’74 and began forging knives in ’76. In the mid 80s he developed the UHC and in the 90s he began to revive the Finnish smithing tradition, then started mass production.
Unlike what he used to claim, bladesmithing never completely died in Finland. Between the 70s and the 90s, in the Kauhava area, was working a triptych of old masters: Altti Kankaanpää, Kustaa Lammi and Yrjö Puronvarsi, near Rovaniemi there was already Veikko Hakkarainen, Roselli himself was working together with what is now considered the Finnish damascus master, Juhani Ahonen.
In the early 90s few others by the name of Jukka Hankala, Martti Malinen and Kay Vikström started to forge as well.

The Carpenter has gone through many modifications from the 80s onward. Its design derives from the “bird’s head” puukkos born in Kauhava in the 30s, which sported a strongly hooked pommel.
On the Carpenter the pommel curve has been softened over the years, the blade started to be stamped instead of forged, the tang became hidden instead of riveted, the bevels shifted from full height convex to the current flat ones, the back stitched sheath was replaced by the current one.

Technical data

blade
length 87 mm
wideness 21 mm
thickness 3 mm
steel Krupp W75
grind flat
edge angle 17°
edge hardness ~ 60 HRC

handle
length 112 mm
wideness 28 mm max.
thickness 20 mm max.

weight
knife 75 g
with sheath 111 g

Overview

The blade was stamped from a bar of Krupp W75, similar to 1080. Roselli claims to personally forge the bevels, heat treating and finishing each blade, but without any further explenation. The blade has a flat section without any tapering whatsoever. The bevels are flat and taken to zero; out of the box it was sharp, but not razor sharp.

The birch handle is roughed out by machine then finished by hand. There is a good junction between the blade and the nickel silver bolster. The handle is sanded to a medium grit, has a soft finish and fills the hand well, while still being on the slim side. It tapers towards the blade and has a reversed teardrop section.

The sheath, a simplified version of the traditional ones, is made out of 2 mm thick leather and machine stitched. The leather of the mouth is folded to assure good retention; inside there is a protective plastic liner. The slotted belt loop is the simpliest to make and doesn’t have major drawbacks.

As said sharpness was good, but not perfect. Around 1.5 cm from the tip I could see and feel two tiny nicks, easily stropped away.

In use and conclusions

Here I report the carving of white spruce butter paddle.

During the roughing I felt a good bite and no relevant edge loss. During the further carving I’ve found the puukko slightly slow when working the concave belly and the convex pommel; also it seemed to me it suffered slightly during the refining cuts done pulling to knife towards me. After the sanding I engraved a teiwaz and the puukko worked finely, even though the tip may be a hair too thick.

At the end of all the very first cms of blade near the bolster weren’t shaving anymore and, in the belly, I felt with the nail two new small nicks, undetectable by eye anyway. So, edge holding and strength were nothing special, but acceptable.

To sum it all up we have a very good handle, comfortable and agile, probably the best among mass produced, flat section, puukkos I’ve tried so far and a blade suffering a bit from the lack of any taper. This would have made all the works done with the tip and the last part of the belly easier and faster.

It’s generally a good step forward from Lauri blades, but still far from what a rhombic blade can do. By the way, those not used to them won’t be able to really appreciate the difference.

H. Roselli

H. Roselli knives are made in Harmoinen, Finland at the workshop founded by bladesmith Heimo Roselli. A self taught smith, Heimo started forging in 1974 and since 1976 he has been making knives full time. Roselli makes a simple, unique and great looking knife using carbon steel blades, curly birch handles and leather sheaths. The knives and sheaths are without embellishments and are definitely meant to be put to work.

The blades are made from Krupp W75 steel with a carbon content of 0.7% to 0.8% hardened to HRC 59 – 62. Roselli also uses ultra high carbon steel in a series of knives that have a carbon content of 1.5% to 2.0% and are hardened to HRC of 64 – 66. A specialized worker flattens the steel with rollers and stamps it in dies to the raw blade shapes; then Roselli himself forges the bevels, does the heat treatment, sharpens and finish all the blades . The handles and sheath are all hand made within the Roselli workshop by few craftsmen. Roselli Oy also produces a line of culinary knives and a traditional style Finnish axe and hatchet.

Here are a few photos from the workshop of Heimo Roselli, please visit his web site at http://www.roselli.fi/ :

Heimo Roselli at work.

Federico Buldrini has written his observations of one of Roselli’s most popular knives, the R110, The Carpenter’s Knife:

“The Roselli nikkarinpuukko has the most classical puukko shape.The hooked pommeled handles became popular in Finland during the 30s and they can be seen extensively from the first Marttiinis to the many Kauhava made puukkos. This Roselli takes the concept and put it to its simplest version.

During the 80s and 90s the model shifted from a more pronounced pommel, a peened blade and a back sewn sheath to a more gentle curved handle, a totally hidden tang blade and side sewed sheath.

The pictures of the transition model comes from a discussion on the rusknife.com forum, posted by a member nicknamed ‘Lahti’ “.

These photos are by Pachkulya Pestrenky also on rusknife.com:

Here are his observations on the current production model of The Carpenter’s Knife:

“The blade is forged from Krupp W75 carbon steel, a German equivalent to American 1080, tempered to a final hardness of 59-62 HRC. The bevels are flat, even, and ground to zero so to have a 18 degree edge. This specimen isn’t air popping sharp, but more than adequate for wood working Avoiding air popping sharpness is also reasonable since it wouldn’t last long in carving. Good biting and very easy to control. All in all the blade measures 86x21x3,2 mm, with a 60 mm tang.

The handle is crafted from curly birch, the bolster that used to be of brass is now of nickel silver. We have a good blade-bolster junction and a good finish to the wood, coated with oil.

The cross section is rectangular with rounded off corners. Even if somebody may find it less comfortable than the usual teardrop section found on puukkos it avoids the handle from turning during work and by any means fills well a mid sized hand. No hot spots have been detected. It’s 113 mm long, widens from 23 to 30 mm and thickens from 13 to 23 mm.

The sheath is a simplified version of a back stitched one. Two sheets of 2 mm leather, one making the back and the belt loop, and one making the front, stitched for few cm. on the back so to permit also an hypothetical horizontal carry, that I anyway see out of its place.

Inside there is a plastic liner, just folded on itself. The slotted belt loop is the easiest to make and holds small belts. Thanks to its smallness it isn’t particularly annoying while sitting.

A very handy puukko, born for woodcarving and ruling it. A good step forward from mass produced knives and ideal if searching for a higher quality and strong charactered puukko without spending the funds for a fully custom made one.

Special thanks to Mihail Pinhasov of Lamnia.fi  for providing the knife and the help in gathering information from H. Roselli.”

Please visit Mihail Pinhasov’s site at http://www.lamnia.fi/index.php?lang=en  an excellent source for all kinds of knives and other gear.

The Carpenter’s Knife:

The Carpenter Knife shown with two other knives for comparison. A small Kauhavan Puukkopaja yleispuukko and a 2011 made Pasi Hurttila vuolupuukko.
Here are the measurements for comparison.
Puukkopaja
blade: 85x17x3,2 mm
handle 100 mm long,
H. Roselli
blade:86x21x3,2 mm
handle 113 mm long,
Pasi Hurttila
blade: 98x21x6 mm rhombic
handle: 109 mm long.

Other items from the workshop of Heimo Roselli:

Roselli leukus

Traditional Finnish axes

Roselli Hunter

Grandfather’s Knife

Garlic Knife

Japanese Cook’s Knives

Ulu

Big Fish Knife

Thank you to Mihail Pinhasov and Heimo Roselli for information for this article and a special thank you to Federico Buldrini for his hard work and dedication.