John Drewes has been a long time customer. Sending us photos of his custom knives every now and then, we have started to urge him to let us sell some. We often display his work on our Social Media Pages. After asking a number of time, he is ready to sell some of these beautiful pieces. Quite the creative craftsman with just beautiful hand finished work.
This is a hat sheath knife (Hattutuppipuukko). This unusual type has a long history in Finland and Sweden, but the true origin of the hat sheath knife is probably back in the Viking age or even earlier. This is a modern version of this unusual type.
The knife blade is a Lauri 95 hammered HD. The handle is of buckthorn wood with a nickel silver (stone washed) bolster, and acrylic "amber" accent piece .
The sheath is made of Finnish veg. tanned steer hide, and has wooden core inside the lower part. The suspension cord is four strands of braided leather thongs. It can be attached to a belt in various ways or simply carried in a pack.
Although the lower part of the sheath is symmetrical, the knife cannot be inserted into the sheath either way. Care must be taken to insert the knife with cutting edge oriented correctly ! The openings of the sheath and "hat", as well as the cross section of the knife handle, are egg shaped. The narrow part of the egg shape corresponds to the cutting edge of the knife. It knife is inserted with force the wrong way, damage to the sheath will occur.
To open the closed sheath, first pull an inch or two of slack from the cords between the hat and the main body of the sheath., as shown in one photo. Then carefully lift the hat up from the main body. Then slide knife out carefully. To return knife to sheath, basically reverse the procedure.
Just another beautiful hand crafted piece, We truly love his work.
