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). The hat sheath knife has a long history especially in Finland and Sweden. Its true origin is probably back in the Viking age or earlier. It's a great way to keep a precision cutting instrument secure and prevent its loss.
The 3 1/8 inch knife blade is carbon steel and was made by Altti Kankaanpaa (Finland). It is extremely sharp. This would be a fine tool for a Viking artisan. The knife handle is made of buckthorn wood and has accent pieces of tortoise shell acrylic and micarta along with a nickel silver bolster.
The sheath is made of veg. tanned steer hide and is hand stitched. There is no wooden core inside the lower part. The attachment cord is a leather thong. To remove the knife from the sheath, first pull down on the attachment cords on each side of the sheath where the "hat" meets the body of the sheath as shown in one photo. This will give an inch or two of slack. Now the "hat" can be removed and the knife carefully withdrawn from the sheath. Reverse the procedure to put knife back in sheath. Keep the parts of the cord that slide through the slots lubricated a bit with leather dressing. A little chap stuck here works surprisingly well for this purpose.
Just another beautiful hand crafted piece, We truly love his work.
