[Ondrej Borsky]

Good evening everyone!

This is the latest knife I am making, and I´d like to share the process with you I decided to focus more on making knives as a whole, not only blades. That is not to say I am stopping blades, but I deffinitely want to finish more pieces

It all started with me having a blade I really liked, and a piece of curly maple:



I was quite set on doing something in Urnes style which... I didn´t Somehow I am always drawn to the Ringerike style! In this case, the brooch below, particulary the beast portraited there, caught my eye...


And so it began... I am still uncertain as to what the animal is, but for me, it resembles a wolf... I started drawing it, to get the details as close to the original as I am able. I changed one thing - I really didn´t like the legs of the beast in the brooch, so I looked at other ringerike animals and changed them a littlebit... Also, I tuned the tail a bit so that it fits the frame of the handle better:


I decided to carve the beast first, it being the most difficult for me to carve, and therefore the most likely to be ruined. So, if there should be a ruinage, i wanted it to be as close to the beginning of the handle as possible... but, everything seems okay (well, there are always the little things that bug you, aren´t there ) and i finished the main carving just as the sun was setting... I found it rather poetical... and then I remebered a story from Northern Mythology, about a warg who chases after the sun, named Sköll. The dusk came, and the warg appeared in the handle... I ensnared it! No more chasing the sun, now it will serve the user of the knife!




I apologize for the bad quality of the last two shots...

Well, I wanted to make sure that Sköll will not break out of his prison, so I added cage around him (also, there is a flattened and ground piece of wrought I intend to use for a buttcap):


And this is where I finished today - now I am grinding micrometer after micrometer so that the buttcap fits as well as possible . Yeah, I could have done it before the carving, but I was never much of a planner :

[Mark Moore]

There's nothing about that knife that I DON'T like! Clean lines, lovely pattern on the blade. Just enough decoration to make it really 'pop'. Excellent job! .......McM

[J. Nicolaysen]

That's really very nice Ondrej! I like it quite a bit. Can you share the measurements please? Also, will you add a ring from the buttcap for hanging from a belt, or would you put that on a sheath? Thanks for sharing.

[Robert P. Wimmers]

Wow, that's a wonderful piece of work!

[Joshua Anthony]

Very nice indeed! Are you planning to keep the handle carvings in that light color, or will you darken it in later?

[Ondrej Borsky]

Hello gentlemen, and thank you for all those wonderful words! They keep me going forward

Joshua - I patinated it The patina makes the lines a little blurry, and the knife appears, at least to my eyes, older.

The knife without the ring is 22cms long, the blade itself is 10,7cms

The ring is there, decoreted with 1mm circles, and should serve for pulling the knife out of a sheath...

Please, tell me your thoughts!

[Mark Moore]

Perfection. That's the only word I can think of at the moment....just....perfection. .....McM

[Mark Moore]

Perfection. That's the only word I can think of at the moment....just....perfection. .....McM

[Ondrej Borsky]

Thank you!
Today things moved a bit - the leather for the sheath got formed, and I prepared, sanded and carved a reindeer antler plate. It is decorated in the same style (ringerike) with a slightly adjusted motif from a weather vane found on Gotland

[Kai Lawson]

As always, I love your knives!

[Ondrej Borsky]

Thank you Kai ! I made one mistake here- the handle is ash, not curly maple.... stupid me! Otherwise the knife is finished, I am starting a thread to make it available