Bushcraft & Survival

KNIVES & AXES

MAKING A MOTAUGAN HANDLE

AUTHOR PROFILE:

Ben & Lois Orford  Ben and Lois Orford live and work from their home in Herefordshire. With their backgrounds in green woodwork and traditional woodland crafts they make a range of handmade woodcraft tools, bushcraft knives and leatherwork for the discerning outdoors enthusiast. Their combined experience and passion for their craft makes them keen to pass on their knowledge and skills.

The traditional Mocotaugan or Indian crook knife is a fantastically versatile tool to carry with you. It was an important tool of the indigenous people of the woodlands in North America and had a very special place in their culture, so much so that some of the handles were not just functional, but very elaborately carved and often handed down through the generations. A.

mocotaugan is an unusual tool to use as it is used by pulling it towards your body with your palm up and your thumb stretched out along the curved back edge of the handle to give power and control. It is a rewarding project to fit your own handle and get it just right for your own needs. So we are going to show you how to make a wooden handle and use the traditional method of fitting the blade, (alternatively you can use a piece of antler or curved branch that looks and feels right in the hand). You could use the same method to fit the blade to the handle that we showed you in the ‘Modify your Mora’ article, (issue 37 page 22) where you draw on the end of the handle the width of the tang and then chain drill a mortice. This will work and is a little quicker, but not as traditional and also makes the blade fitting permanent.  The great advantage of this method is that you can remove the blade if the handle or blade need to be modified at all, or to make sharpening easier. It is also an advantage if the blade of the knife is low to the bottom edge of the handle as this method will give greater control when using the tool and improve cutting ability.

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he one important factor of the crook knife is to ensure a good fit for your grip and hand size, so that it doesn’t make using it uncomfortable or strain your wrist in any way. The

Before you start making the handle it is important that you already have the blade, as you need to make the handle wide enough to fit the tang. The blades are available online from a few bushcraft stores or can be made from old files or even modified from farriers' hook knives. There are a few styles, some are straight and some are more curved like a spoon knife, ideally the blade to look for if you want the style of knife for making bows and paddles etc. should