[Big-O]

I am wanting to purchase a draw knife. I see there are straight and curved knives. Since I am only going to use this for bark removal and stock removal on hiking sticks which one would be the best buy. I was thinking of a straight knife with a blade of 6 to 10 inches. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[Rodney]

I think the curved ones I've seen were pretty specialized for things like hollowing out the seats of chairs or things of that nature. I think a straight one would work fine.

Are you building a shaving horse to go with it?

Right now I just use a utility knife to peel mine but then I'm not doing it for money either.

Rodney

 

[cobalt]

I do use a flex draw knife for carving and have used it to de bark hawthorn it works well but i dont debark the type of shanks i use

 

[Big-O]

Yes I'm looking at building at shaving horse.

 

[Big-O]

Thanks for the input. Straight it is. I'm using a Mora #2 to take the bark off. I was just looking for something a little better, and a little easier on the hands.

 

[gdenby]

I have a straight drawknife from Mora. I don't have a horse, just clamp the stick to a work surface. So I don't use the drawknife much. But part of the reason is that many number of the sticks I work on are not terribly straight, and the draw knife doesn't work so well around the twists and bends.

I have several of the Mora carving knives, and I like them. I really like the straight edge carving knife. and still use it fairly frequently.

For a long time I did my heavy de-barking by starting w. a Mora farrier's knife, followed by a 4-in-1 rasp. Currently, I'm using a somewhat expensive bushcraft knife made by a guy who runs a shop called North Bay Forge. The steel is very well tempered, and will hold close to a razor edge even when hacking against wood. I follow that with several sizes of modeler and cabinet maker rasps.

 

[Gloops]

I dont' normally take bark off (it's a UK thing) but when I have I have dine it with knife, leaving some of the underbark on for contrast and finishing with a scraper.

 

[Rodney]

Depends on the species for me. Smooth bark gets left on, rough bark gets removed.

Rodney