I’ve been participating in a Bushcraft Box Pass Around Challenge and one of the items that came to me was a Puukko. After taking the knife into the forest to split some wood for a fire the handle cracked while batoning. For those who don’t know, batoning is technique of safely splitting wood by using a branch to strike the spine of a sturdy knife in order to drive it through wood. This exposes smaller dried pieces for easier fire starting. Maybe it’s best I baton with a full tang knife…

Well the split turned into an an offer and opportunity by a friend to learn how to re-handle the blade. He had a piece of beaver chewed cedar drift wood just waiting for a project.

The old cracked handle and butt plate were knocked and sanded off. The tang was heated with a torch and lengthened with a few hammer blows. The new wood handle was cut to size, drilled, epoxied and capped with a brass plate using a ball peen hammer.

After it was sanded and the grip felt right the knife received an initial coat of Boiled Linseed Oil.

I’ll continue to apply the boiled linseed oil once a day for a week and once a month for a year.