The Cloggers Knife | Old Tool Reborn

You're watching a video about my cloggers knife  manufacturing process as well as its various   applications at my log cabin camp i partially  forged and partially welded my cloggers knife   from a rail clip and a leaf spring this  knife's shape is based on traditional design   using cloggers knives shoemakers would shape a  wooden sole and outer contours of wooden shoes   this excellent tool is ideal when it is necessary  to shave off a large chunk of wooden blank without   using an axe this is because the plank might  not withstand an ax impact and split or you   just might need to make repetitive high precision  cuts you may have noticed that my knife has some   differences from traditional ones the fact is that  a traditional clogge's knife is equipped with one   of two types of cantilever mounting attachments  which allow the workman to exert great forces on   the knife's cutting edge when required either a  hook that is engaged into an eye in the workbench   or a pin that is inserted into a hole at  the desired height from the base block   both mounting methods have obvious advantages  and equally obvious disadvantages because   i've never held a cloggers knife in my hands  until i forged one i couldn't speculatively   choose which mounting method would work  better for me as a result i decided to   combine both mounting designs in my cloggers  knife to later decide which one works best   despite the considerable length of the knife's  cutting edge it is not difficult to resharpen   it even in field conditions i use the metal try  square and some wet/dry sandpaper it is not at   all necessary to build a water-powered grinding  wheel in the woods when i decided to forge my   cloggers knife i assumed that i would use it  really but looking back at the past two years of   owning the exotic tool i was surprised to find  that i use it whenever it is in reach and it's   been on my tool rack for the past two seasons so  i came to the conclusion that the cloggers knife   is more of a universal tool than a specialized  one well at least in my case as i use it whenever   i need to finish the end of a work piece to slice  wood chips to cut wedges to sharpen pegs and so on if you followed my channel you may have noticed  that i've used the cloggers knife in every   woodworking carpentry agricultural project and  oddly enough in half of my culinary experiments   in order to support my claim i will show a couple  of memorable examples of its use in this footage i   just chamfered the bottom of my two-handed pestle  made from dry maple as a side note it is advisable   to refresh a pestle's working surface regularly  firstly the pestle's edges get damaged during use   and secondly after crushing coffee beans the  coffee powder gets packed into the wood's pores   so when you later grind wheat for example it is  a good idea to get rid of the coffee smell or if   you grind pepper in a mortar then you most likely  do not want to mix the aroma of spices and coffee i remember when i baked an apple pie in my earth  oven i even cut apples with the cloggers knife   but right after the sake of mischief  it is not a kitchen knife after all   at any rate it was arguably  the best apple pie in my life   the clogger's knife also excelled at finishing  the crosscuts of the armrest hexagonal supports   of my bushcraft chair i don't even know what  hand tool would work better for the task   sanding or planing would take longer  and wouldn't leave such a glossy surface   without the cloggers knife i would  almost certainly have left the crosscut   as is however it is precisely such small details  that give an appeal to handcrafted furniture you might remember together with a beaver i built  a creek dam at my law cabin camp to be more exact   i only laid down the foundation and installed the  drain pipe while the beaver did the rest of the   work during my absence in dry summers the creek  almost dries out but beavers value and save water   so my cloggers knife helped me in this project  as well i used it to fit the wooden plug to the   drain pipe to drain accumulated pond water when  needed and of course i used my cloggers knife   for making various kitchen utensils such as this  scoop that i carved from a block of black alder for some reason when i published this footage on  my instagram most people unanimously claimed i was   slicing cheese take a closer look it's a block of  laundry soap that i used in my watermill-powered   washing machine in any case this trusty tool  proves its multi-purpose functionality by even   helping me make bushcraft laundry detergent  soap slices dissolve in water much faster   i want to believe that after five long minutes  of my cloggers knife demonstration i was able   to convince my audience that the cloggers knife  is an undeservably forgotten tool and you might   want to make one for yourself so it's time  to move on to the story about its creation   it all started with the leaf spring i got from  my friend and a rusty railway clip that i found   on the ground i decided the clip would make  a good stiff handle and a mounting attachment   while the leaf spring would become the knife's  blade as a first step i removed the remnants of   the former attachment by drilling out a rivet  and freed the spring from years of corrosion   then i straightened the spring rocker by heating  it up with my forge placing it on the anvil's face   and giving it a couple of hammer blows...  although wait... let's go back five hours   we need a good size forge for the project  and i haven't said a word about it yet   you might remember how i made my first mini-forge  from a tin can plaster-sand mix and a blowtorch   and then a second larger forge made from a small  tin barrel powered by propane too i also assembled   a coal forge from two buckets some sand a cast  iron roaster pen and an old fan but this time   i need a really large gas forge that could be  assembled fast it only took me an hour to complete   it after my house construction i had some leftover  hollow bricks that i used for this forge assembly   just like a stack of kid's toy blocks the blow  torch was borrowed from my old tin barrel forge   for installation i used the kaolin fiber felt  that costs pennies all in all such brick forge   is low budget and can be quickly assembled  best of all you can quickly change its inner   chamber's dimension as needed now when half  of the workpiece can fit in the forge it can   be heated and straightened only half of the leaf  spring will be used for the cloggers knife's blade   the rest of it became a large draw knife later  if i were a blacksmith i would have chopped   the heated workpiece with a chisel but at that  time i did not have the right tool or knowledge   so i just sawed it off with a side grinder  next time i will do it the traditional way   look at the layout markings at first i plan to  lighten the blade in the area of the lever mount   but in the process i abondened this idea i  decided that the stiffness of a cloggers knife   is more important than its weight  and a delicate beauty of the tool   now i'm dividing the railroad clip into three  parts i used the central part as a mounting pin   -the pivoting point of the future clogger's knife  as for the larger piece i forged a tapered punch   tool from it because the railroad clip is made  from a spring structural steel grade 60S2A it's   not that easy to straighten it this is why i had  to make a blacksmith bending fork for this task   so i got sidetracked again for making another  auxiliary tool of course it is a loss of pace but   on the other hand a bending fork is an incredibly  useful tool around the metal shop the working part   of the fork is made from a large leaf spring  and i probably should have annealed it first   but i figured i could drill four holes in the  spring steel and my angle grinder's attachments   could handle the hardened steel well i  did it but it took longer than expected   taking advantage of the fact that the following  actions are self-evident and self-explanatory   i want to ask you considering that i'm only a  novice do you think i will succeed in making   cloggers knife on my first try? i think the most  experienced and insightful have already guessed   well while i distracted you from the making  process with idle talk my heavy-duty bending fork   got completed and is now ready for use so it is a  high time to heat up the spring clip in the forge   and then to start its sequential straightening  and of course i failed in straightening the spring   clip on the first try but the skill comes with  experience now two years later i unbend such a   spring clip in two heating cycles in a way that  further straightening is almost not necessary   it took me at least five heating cycles and a lot  of hammering to get the rod straight on the first   try luckily it was not necessary to preserve  the cylindricity of the rod in this project   but after swinging a heavy mallet for  a while and looking at the dent marks   left by it on the rod i decided that  i needed a special backing device   exclusively for straightening a rod and a  year later i assembled such a tool if you   know its english name please let me know below  at any rate it is a completely different story   and this device did not take part in the cloggers  knife manufacturing process after fitting the   parts together the blade the handle and the hinge  i decided to reinforce the blade's spine to do   this i used the same rod which is made of the same  spring steel grade 60S2A as the blade I hot-forged   the rod into a strip using a blacksmithing hammer  with a hemispherical striker after half an hour of   forging i envied ambidextrous people as my right  hand insistently began to demand the break but   i'm right handed otherwise i would have changed my  hand and continued this exciting crossfit exercise note that the forge is outside and the anvil is  in the shop such setup has a number of advantages   obviously this is safer less noisy and most  importantly all combustion products remain   outside and i breathe relatively clean air without  using an exhaust hood plus i don't have to worry   about the weather after break i decided that i  would definitely assemble a mechanical hammer   for my blacksmith's shop and most likely it will  be wooden it should be an interesting project   remember earlier in the video i said that my  cloggers knife will have two alternative mounting   options this means that the knife must be equipped  with the pivoting hole i decided to use a drift to   punch it as the holes diameter will be larger  than the width of the strip itself additionally   i had to make a special cylindrical drift to be  able to enlarge the hole to the desired diameter   later this 17 millimeter (almost 11/16 inch) drift  was used as a metal pin for this knife's mounting   additionally this hardened-tip drift  came in handy around the blacksmith shop   more than once i used it as a punch as a  nail setter as well as an engineer scriber in order for the hole to look more aesthetically  pleasing i countersunk its chamfers using an   engine valve the excess part of the punched rod  could be sawed off with an angle grinder but this   time i decided to do it the right way using a  hot-cut hardy i could make it fast since the   parts of this blacksmithing device have long been  in my shop the advantages of this cutting method   are having less dust in the air less noise and no  angle grinder disk waste besides learning a new   skill is always beneficial the handle part that  attached to the blade and then to the mounting   hole could now be welded together after which  all of the bumps and irregularities formed during   forging and welding can be ground off because  there was a small defect on the blades portion   of the metal strip i simply added some material  with a welder there which predictably curved the   metal strip and i had to flattened it on the anvil  the handle portion of the knife's spine should be   slightly humped ergonomically the point of a force  application which is going to be the grip portion   of the tool's handle should be on the line of the  blades cutting edge and the knife's mounting point   otherwise it will be twisting out of your hand  during use to properly align the knife's parts   i slightly bent the handle in a fishtail shape by  the way a simple forge for zone heating of a metal   rod can be assembled simply by folding a flap of  kaolin-fiber felt or any other fire resistant felt   all the cloggers knife's parts are ready  which means it is time to weld them together   i have little experience in welding and these were  my first steps in working with a semi-automatic   welding machine however i can say that this method  is certainly more convenient than stick welding   working with metal is like working with clay if  there is not enough you can simply add some clay   if there is an excess you can remove it you  cannot do it when you're carving stone or wood   of course the swivel mount should be given  extra attention after all this is where the   maximum loads will be exerted on during the  cloggers knive's operation given the length   of the lever and my weight the stresses here  may well exceed a ton per square centimeter   taking into account that the Deformation Sigma  for C45 grade steel is about 5 tons per square   centimeter the maximum design load of this part is  only five times greater than the experimental one   it is here where the weld seam should be of  the highest quality and reliability the blade   spec reinforcement was also welded however  i did not dare to apply continuous weld seam   thinking that due to my inexperience the blade's  spine might expand and curve therefore i spot   welded the back support alternating the blades  sides in the process of electric arc welding the   knife's internal stresses accumulate but most of  them can be removed by normalizing the work piece   in the forge so before hardening i straightened  the blade once again and only then proceeded   to its final hardening i decided to heat the  blade's cutting edge and then immerse it in water   so it would be a zone-hardening  procedure followed by self-normalizing   the plan succeeded i briefly placed the knife in  the forge and since the blade's spine is thicker   and more massive than its cutting edge it did  not have time to really heat up and when immersed   in water thus only the cutting edge would harden  i should have stopped right there even though the   blades cutting edge slightly curved at that  point this is when i made a fatal mistake   as you know "the best is the enemy of the good"  and "the bad head does not give rest to the legs"   as if in order to prove these popular sayings  i decided to straighten the blade and then   temper it again using the traditional  differential hardening method this time   i cannot rationally explain my further actions it  is completely incomprehensible what i was counting   on literally last year i ruined the draw knife's  blade in exactly the same way instead of relying   on the self-normalizing phase i stubbornly  continued to cool the cutting edge in water   as Lewis Carroll wrote in  Alice's Adventure in Wonderland:   "If you drink much from a bottle marked  'poison' it is certain to disagree with you   sooner or later..." it is obvious that if a heated  steel plate's side is cooled for a long time   the internal stresses will increase and the  cooled side will gain hardness and brittleness   resulting in its cracking with a very  unpleasant sound of a complete fiasco in other circumstances i would have just  put the cracked workpiece aside with a smile   took the second half of the leaf spring and  repeated all the steps only with due diligence   this time however it was late in the evening and  tomorrow morning i was leaving for my log cabin   camp for a month where i planned to use this tool  in my new projects and after bargaining with my   internal quality control center i decided to do  a temporary fix... temporary... they say there is   nothing more permanent than temporary anyways so i  chamfered the cracks edges using an angle grinder   and simply welded the crack obviously the knife's  hardness suffered in the area of the weld but i   decided not to re-harden the blade because firstly  there was simply no time and secondly most of the   knife's cutting edge is still very hard while the  blade's internal stress has been unintentionally   eliminated by my radically barbaric method all  things considered the final result isn't that bad   the knife is safe now and it won't burst  during operation and it will stay sharp   so what remains is to grind the welds sharpen  the blade and shape the geometry of the handle   i shaped the handle's tang to accept a  traditional wooden handle the knife's   tang should be rectangular slightly tapered  and bent up in this case with each cut   the operator will press the wooden  handle more strongly onto the tang   so the wooden handle will not dangle or  fall off even without additional fixation   the first year i used the cloggers knife  without a wooden handle which was a mistake   the maple handle significantly improved the  maximum exertable force and the blades control   maple is the hardest wood i could find around  here despite the fact that during the tool's   transportation i knock off the wooden handle  from the tang it has not cracked or fallen off   during use again i did not use any glue i just  drilled a hole in a wooden block and hammered the   maple handle onto the tang with a wooden mallet  simple and reliable as you understand a cloggers   knife always goes together with a specialized  support block equipped with a cantilever mount i   installed such mounts on my shaving horse on my  topsy-turvy workbench and on saw horses that are   back home later i even made a specialized mounting  stand for the cloggers knife at the very beginning   of the video i said that i planned to choose one  of the two types of cantilever mounting methods   based on the results of field tests even though  the field trials lasted for two years i haven't   made my choice yet both mounting methods are good  and they don't even get in the way of each other   two years ago i didn't have time to build this  specialized cloggers knife stand and only managed   to finish it last summer i have not yet come  up with the name for it and i'm waiting for   your suggestions perhaps you can come up with  an original name because i'm at my wits' end   a few words about the non-obvious  value of the cloggers knife   while shaping a workpiece with such a tool i  noticed that i never get tired a large amount   of material is removed by mostly using your body  weight and a lever principle also a change of   activity can be restful because when you work  using fundamentally different tools you load   different muscle groups therefore you increase  your productivity and almost never get tired   for example i could have shaped this  work piece using my primitive pole lathe   but then i would have spent more time and effort  i believe that any work including physical work   should be enjoyable thus making this cloggers  knife helped me to take a break from my office   work routine brought aesthetic pleasure as  well as filled my blacksmithing skills' gaps   in any case based on the experience of  using this knife for different projects   i can say that i do not regret the time spent  on making it when i gain more experience in   blacksmithing i will make another cloggers knife  this time on a more professional level at home friends i'm pleased that you watched this video  to the very end which means you found the video   interesting perhaps even helpful and the many  hours spent to shoot and edit it were not wasted you may have noticed i do not publish my  videos often and even if you are subscribed   to the channel you most likely will not receive  notification about a new video but you can try to   set up a bell for all notifications they say it  helps thank you for sharing my videos with your   friends and let good people watch good videos  this is Max Egorov St.Petersburg Russia p.s.   Below i left a link to my DIY projects playlist  as well as playlists about my log cabin building   bushcraft projects kayaks making and outdoor  cooking i hope to see you back on Advoko MAKES... you

Channel: Advoko MAKES

Views: 1,658,100

Rating: 4.9488573 out of 5

Keywords: log cabin, off grid log cabin, off grid living, off grid cabin build, bushcraft skills, cabin living, bear proof survival shelter, water wheel build, survival skills, bushcraft survival, bushcraft primitive, primitive survival, survival in forest, primitive skills, DIY, diy cloggers knife, diy waterwheel mill, bushcraft, diy projects, primitive technology, primitive technology building, advoko makes, max egorov, forging a knife, making a knife, blacksmithing a knife

Id: wYKUBzTJxtA

Length: 23min 1sec (1381 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 01 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/auntiope3000]

I have watched every video on this guy’s YouTube, highly recommend!

[u/ianonuanon]

Fucking amazing video man thanks so much! So enjoyable to watch and inspiring!

[u/god_emperor_zach]

I thought this was a poop knife joke.

[u/becksfakk]

These are also called stock knives. I spent hours watching Elmer Veldheer carving klompen with one!