On Monday I met my classmates for the Winter Activites part of the program of study that has been arranged here for me. They are a cheerfull bunch of people, 13 old timers who started in September and 4 newbies including yours truly. They are a close knit group but have been very welcoming to all us newbies, including organising an ' Onsdagspils me klassen' for tomorrow which I fear roughly translates as 'Lets see how much these new folk can drink!'
Everyone is looking forward to our 3 skiing trips, 1 mountain exped and 1 sea kayak exped. Each trip lasts 3 to 5 days. Its a hard life...
Our classes have been based on learning how to make a knife and putting that knowledge into use. This includes the use of big electric bandsaws and other power tools and today I witnessed Anders nearly gaining some experiential learning in why you should not let your thumb get too close to the blade. The safety attitude here is quite different to the UK, there are few guards on the machines and no-one is made to wear safety glasses, hard hats or fluorescent jackets in the workshop. People are expected to think for themselves and be carefull. Some things I agree with, some I am uncomfortable with.
Knife making: yesterday we watched a blacksmith make a new blade in a traditional fashion at a local crafts museum. No longer cutting edge technology perhaps. We each bought a handmade blade; different designs were on offer, some having over 250 layers of metal in the blade and prices ranged from £15 to over £100. I bought a 'cheap' one. Today we were taught by another craftsman. His passion was for making handles. He would bid for rare pieces of Mexican desert Ironwood which can go for £££ and Musk Ox horn, again superbucks. I didn't understand his talk as it was all in Norwegian but Erik translated some of it for me. I also discovered from Erik what the general class sense of humour was like- very low and dirty. Seems I may fit in.
After the talk we set off on making our own handles. The pics below show the development of my knife. The handle is made out of Pear tree wood, a very hard hardwood which has been dried for 10 years before use. It was an absolute pleasure to work with this wood, an almost spiritual experience.
The idea takes shape..
Hlafway there...now for the 3 hours of sanding...
That's good enough.
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