The CROOKED KNIFE is a one-handed draw knife and was an invention of the woodland Native-Americans who were canoe, sled, and snowshoe builders. Because it is most often associated with carving the wooden ribs and other parts for canoes, it is sometimes called a “canoe knife.” Among the several nations of the Abenaqui (Abenaki), who were the predominant Algonquian people of New England, New Brunswick and the Canadian Maritimes, the crooked knife is called the bikahtagenigan (bee-kah-tah-gen-i-gan). Prominent among them as canoe builders are the Penobscot. Among the more western Algonquian people, whose most northern nation is the Cree, the crooked knife is called a mocotaugan. The most numerous of the Algonquian people are the Ojibwe, some of whom call the crooked knife a wagikoman, but most of whom call the crooked knife by the same word as the Cree, mocotaugan. A very useful bushcraft knife.. The Native-American Mocotaugan / Couteau Croche / Crooked Knife Following this I decided to make one and it took less than an hour. thumb groove,the wood is hickory.
That looks like an interesting project...yet it may remind some people of handy prison work, too. Nobody knows prisons better than an American. Are you sure you really want to market to such a crowd? =P
Haven't made one yet, but will soon (hopefully). Right now I just use my gouges, Mora 164, and a recip blade crook knife (homemade).
A file is very hard to hold the teeth sharp against other metals. It's best to anneal the file before grinding off the teeth. Do this by heating a bed of sand "very hot" then heat the file to near red, place it in the bed and cover with a "thick" layer of hot sand. Let it cool slowly, take a day or two or more depending on initial heat. (I've had some success bedding steels in the remnants of a bonfire, took two days to cool to touch.) Comes out soft enough to chew. From there, working the file to shape is a piece of cake. Once shaped and sharpened, go thru the hardening and tempering as described in the OP. Initial re-hardening takes a rapid quench (water is fast, yields very hard and brittle material, oil quench is slower and not quite as hard and brittle.) tempering is air cooled. If you want to get fancy, try hardening and tempering just the cutting edge. Really tricky heat control, well beyond most backyard blacksmiths, certainly beyond my skills and abilities; but it can be done with heat sink materials applied to the back edge of the blade.
