The Norwegian Knife and What to Buy

This module reconstructs two Vesterheim Folk Art School classes as one project:

• Scott Johnson’s four-day Making a Norwegian Brukskniv with Wood and Leather Sheath: a Norwegian work knife whose sheath is “constructed of wood and German leather (half tanned)” and “will include one piece of leather braided and capped with antler or wood.” It’s intermediate to advanced and expects some knife and sheath experience ¹.
• KJ Groven’s three-day Beginner Knifemaking and Hand Tools: a handle carved by hand on a pre-made blade, “more of a knife for carving than a fancy belt knife,” a traditional Norwegian sheath of vegetable-tanned leather, and simple tools made from hardware-store stock: an awl, a leather modeling tool, and two tang saws, one with push-and-pull teeth cut from scratch. No forging ².

Neither class’s plan is published; this follows the sources cited.

The Norwegian knife

A traditional Norwegian blade has a tang, a grinding bevel, an edge, and a spine, and was forged with soft steel around a hard edge steel. Handles were fixed with glue or rivets and made of wood, horn, bone, birch bark, leather, or metal, with metal bands at the ends. Sheaths were usually leather, carved, stamped, or embossed; Tinn, Toten, and Gjerstad were known centers ³. The everyday carving knife is the tollekniv, from Old Norse talguknifr, carving knife ⁴.

Sizes from museum knives

• A Telemark knife by Hallstein Kroken Midbø is 20 cm long with a 9.1 cm blade, a curly (masur) birch handle, and a sheath of thick, dark-brown ornamented leather 25.7 cm long ⁵.
• A tollekniv is 24 cm overall with a blade 7.2 cm long and 4.5 mm thick, a brass ferrule with acanthus, and masur birch ⁶.
• An 1899 knife is 17.5 cm long and its sheath 15 cm, but only 21 cm long sheathed: the sheath swallows part of the handle, the deep Norwegian style ⁷.

A blade of 3 to 4 inches and a handle of 4 to 4 1/2 inches covers most of these.

Blades and fittings

Ragweed Forge in Wisconsin sells Scandinavian blades and fittings:

• Helle blades from Norway, such as the Skog blade, triple-laminated with a Scandi grind, 3 1/16 inches long and 2.45 mm thick, $30 ⁸.
• Bolsters in brass or nickel-silver, such as 19 × 30 × 3 mm, $3.50 to $4.50 ⁹.
• Butt ends to peen the tang over, 10.5 mm, $1.25 ¹⁰.
• Plastic sheath inserts if you’d rather not carve a liner, $1 to $2.50 ¹¹.
• A Karesuando kit with a carbon-steel blade, curly birch block, brass bolster, antler spacer, sheath leather, liner, thong, and thread, $149.99 ¹².

Norway’s Brusletto sells a DIY kit with blade, ferrule, wood block, leather, needle, and thread, $59.26 from Knife Country USA ¹³. For a birch-bark handle, stacked bark spacers are sold for hidden-tang blades ¹⁴.

Håvard Bergland’s Norwegian Knife Making, with about 400 illustrations, is $56 at the Vesterheim store ¹⁵.

Leather and liner

Johnson’s sheath combines wood and leather ¹; the wooden liner inside keeps the edge from cutting the stitching. Use vegetable-tanned leather about 3 mm thick, which molds when wet. A sheath maker’s liner is three thin layers of pine ¹⁶; lesson 3 has the details.

Try it

Lay the blade on paper and draw the whole knife full size around it: the handle’s side view, then its top view. Hold the drawing in your hand as if gripping the knife. Change the outline until it fits your hand before buying a handle block.