These knives and blades are being sold in Hellman Auctions’ online auction, which opens on September 16th. You can participate in the auction by registering here. You can also order a reminder about the start of the auction by joining the forged into a knife mailing list from the front page.
The handle is made from Finnish curly birch, because in my opinion it embodies perseverance and strength—just like the Ukrainian people. I dyed the handle with Narvi dyes in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, but I also wanted some of the birch’s natural color to remain, so that it would connect with Finland. The lower and upper fittings of the knife I cast from rifle cartridges, with the idea that once the cartridges have done their work against Russia, they can still be reused. In addition, I made a casting mold of Ukraine’s trident coat of arms into the upper fitting.
The sheath is vegetable-tanned leather, dyed with Narvi dyes, and it bears a text in Cyrillic letters:
“An unbelievably brave man, a true friend of the homeland and a hero.
Honor to Kolia’s memory!”
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Locking pins: brass Corby bolts.
Lanyard hole: brass tube.
Assembled with BSI slow epoxy.
Handle scales of stabilized amboyna burl.
Handle finished with Libero finishing oil.
Sheath:
Vegetable-tanned cowhide.
Birch plywood liner.
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Fittings: brass.
Handle: Birch bark. The handle is assembled without glue. Finished with Libero finishing oil.
Sheath: birch plywood and birch bark.
Locking: brass tube + birch plywood and bark.
More of Riku’s work can be found on his website and YouTube.
Knife: The handle material is high-quality Finnish curly birch. The wood is tough and complex in grain, symbolizing at the same time the perseverance of the Ukrainians on their front lines. On the handle, “Ukraine/2025” is inscribed with a pyrography pen, telling of a unique piece made for charity. The sheath is made of Finnish cow vegetable-tanned leather with simple decorations, treated with leather grease. The blade is recycled steel from the Ukrainian front!
Kitchen knife: The handle material is high-quality Finnish curly birch. The wood is tough and complex in grain, symbolizing at the same time the perseverance of the Ukrainians on their front lines. On the handle, “Ukraine/2025” is inscribed with a pyrography pen, telling of a unique piece made for charity. The blade is recycled steel from the Ukrainian front.
Handle material: green Micarta
Micarta is an excellent choice for tactical knives, where non-slip grip in the hand is especially important.
Micarta does not essentially require any treatment agents, but it can absorb liquids. I experimented with different substances and found that sauna wood protection provides excellent resistance to moisture, deepens the color of the handle, and further improves the grip.
I attached the handles with composite adhesive and Chicago screws.
Decoration: The handles feature an inlay of Ukraine’s trident emblem made of stainless steel and carbon fiber.
Coating: Cerakote
The blade has a C-231T MagPul Foliage Green Cerakote coating to protect against rust. The coating belongs to Cerakote’s air-dry paints, which cure in about five days.
Coating durability: Medium
Sheath: made from thermoformable Kydex sheets. The belt attachment is a rotating model, allowing the user to position it on the belt as desired.
Handle material: black Micarta
Micarta is an excellent choice for tactical knives, where non-slip grip in the hand is especially important.
Micarta does not essentially require any treatment agents, but it can absorb liquids. I experimented with different substances and found that sauna wood protection provides excellent resistance to moisture, deepens the color of the handle, and further improves the grip.
I attached the handles with composite adhesive and Chicago screws.
Decoration: The handles feature an inlay of Ukraine’s trident emblem made of stainless steel and carbon fiber.
Coating: double Cerakote
The blade has an LR-100-T – LR Black base coat to protect against rust. The coating was cured at 80° C for one hour. After this, a C-7600-T – Glacier Black matte “pitch black” top coat was sprayed on.
C-7600-T belongs to Cerakote’s air-dry paints, which cure in about five days.
Coating durability: Hard
Sheath: made from thermoformable Kydex sheets. The belt attachment is a rotating model, allowing the user to position it on the belt as desired.
Sheath: vegetable-tanned cowhide
The overall design of the knife draws inspiration from a subtle military style, resembling the Finnish ranger’s knife (sissipuukko). The aim in design and finishing has been to create a refined version of the sissipuukko.
The sharpening angle of the blade is slightly shallower than the commonly used 20 degrees, being about 18 degrees, which allows easier carving. The blade is edge-hardened and has a rhombus-shaped profile, tapering towards the tip.
The handle material is Ukrainian bog oak approximately 4000 years old. The handle surface is finished with Danish Oil and additionally treated with Birchwood Casey gunstock wax.
The handle’s shape is slightly off-center and triangular, allowing an exceptionally firm grip in different positions.
The knife’s sheath is made of over 3 mm thick vegetable-tanned cowhide. It is dyed with Narvi dyes in the colors of a flag stained by the war in Ukraine. The surface of the sheath is treated with Gold Quality leather grease.
I have put all my passion and craftsmanship into making this knife, in honor of the sacrifices of the Ukrainian people and their fight for their homeland.
In the knife made by MrValhalla (Teemu), the handle materials are ice hockey puck, deer antler, cowhide, and nearby birch felled in the 1950s.
The sheath is made of cowhide and dyed with Narvi dyes.
The box is partly made from boards taken from a dismantled war veterans’ house (rintamamiestalo).
The blade of the knife was forged by Riku Vastamäki.
The handle of the knife is finished with paraffin oil, the sheath with saddle grease, and the box with boat tar. These same products can be used for maintenance care.
The carvings, illustrations, and texts were not carefully preplanned, but emerged as the work progressed, while my thoughts were in Ukraine—reflecting both the war stories of my own relatives and the accounts of my Ukrainian friend from the “skull site.” None of them wished for war, but it is a necessary evil that must be endured at the harshest cost for the sake of the Fatherland!
Slava Ukraini
The handle includes rowan, which somewhat resembles Ukraine’s national tree, the viburnum (kalyna). Aluminum fitting, deer antler, acrylic, and rowan.
The sheath is vegetable-tanned cowhide. The sheath features Ukraine’s national flower, the sunflower.
My leuku has simple materials. The handle is curly birch from Niinisaari in Puumala, brass plate, and vulcanized fiberboard. The sheath is vegetable-tanned cowhide and pitch thread. The handle is finished with varnish and carnauba wax.
Making the leuku happened at a rather difficult time, because I injured both my hands and shoulders and was on long sick leave. Still, I decided to make the leuku even though I was almost without the use of my hands, because I see the goals of this project as so important.
Guard: brass.
Handle: bog oak with G10 fiberglass plates at both ends.
Blade: etched dark with vinegar.
Sheath: vegetable-tanned cowhide, dyed black with Narvi dye.
Handle: curly birch and birch burl, with acrylic plates in the middle, fittings made of deer antler.
Sheath: vegetable-tanned cowhide, dyed black with Narvi dye.
Handle: stabilized flame birch dyed black, with fittings of nickel silver and acrylic plates.
Blade: bevels etched dark with ferric chloride.
Sheath: vegetable-tanned cowhide, dyed dark brown with Narvi dye.
The knife has brass fittings and an inlaid Ukrainian trident made with slot inlay. The handle is dyed curly birch and birch bark. The handle is oiled.
The blades are edge-hardened, the handles are curly goat willow root with brass fittings. The sheaths are double-layer vegetable-tanned cowhide, dyed with Narvi dyes. The patterns are strongly intended to connect with the theme.
As for myself, I’m an “untrained blacksmith.” I first learned knife forging at the Sirniö blacksmithing days in the early 2000s. Since then, I have drawn on the teachings of the master blacksmith from Kainuu, Sakari Väätti, in the making of traditional Kainuu-style knives.
Handle: birch.
Front fitting: bronze.
Sheath: vegetable-tanned leather.
Lower fittings: nickel silver
Black vulcanized fiber spacers
2x brass fittings
Handle: curly birch, dyed with Liberon dark mahogany, finished with antique wax.
Sheath: vegetable-tanned cowhide, with a plywood liner.
Blade: smith Joona Kuitunen
Pommel: stained curly birch, deer antler, and dark hardwood (backwood) + vulcanized fiber plates in different shades
Handle: birch bark, fittings of 3 mm brass, and slot inlays of 0.14 mm brass. Oiled (Danish Oil) and waxed with antique wax.
Sheath: butt-seamed vegetable-tanned leather. Oiled and waxed.
The blade is forged in full tang form. For the handle scales I used curly birch patterned by white rot, which under the right conditions creates strong figures in the wood. The wood itself is not rotten; rather, the fungus that causes white rot—usually tinder fungus (Fomes fomentarius) or artist’s conk (Ganoderma applanatum)—decorates the wood fibers in different shades as it progresses.
Between the metal part of the handle and the wood there is elk hide. The handle scales are riveted to the metal. The wooden parts of the handle are impregnated with varnish and waxed with beeswax.
I filed decorative patterns on the spine of the blade.
The sheath is sewn from vegetable-tanned cowhide, patterned with bone sticks, dyed, and waxed with a self-made beeswax mixture. Inside the sheath is a hand-carved solid wooden liner. On the lower part of the sheath, the Finnish and Ukrainian flags are combined, symbolizing the shared goal of our nations: ending the war and rebuilding Ukraine.
The blade was forged into shape and filed by hand to its final form. The “battle scars” have been left on the blade. The “hook” starting at the tip can be used to lift, for example, the lid of a stove or a coffee pot. The tang is riveted through the end of the knife. The handle has brass fittings, strong and warm-feeling wenge wood, as well as birch bark taken from my own forest in South Ostrobothnia. The colors of the Ukrainian flag are made from acrylic plates. The spacers are thin brass sheet.
The sheath is hand-shaped and hand-stitched from vegetable-tanned cowhide, dyed by hand with leather dyes. A trident motif is stamped with a metal rod, over which is painted the Ukrainian flag, torn and battered by battle.
The knife I made is approximately 410 mm long, with a blade length of about 250 mm. It features a hidden tang construction, with the tang end riveted to the upper bolster. The bolsters are cast from rifle cartridges, and the handle is made of walnut wood.
The leather sheath is sewn from approximately 3.5 mm thick cowhide and crowned with a braid of 925 silver wire along its upper edge. Using the pauting technique, I inscribed the text “Lest we forget – 1939–1945” onto the sheath. With this inscription, I wanted to honor those who fell in our wars and to remind others of the injustice Finland suffered when the Soviet Union unlawfully invaded in 1939.
Blade:
The material is spring steel, alloy equivalent to 51CrV4, variant 7408 (a piece supplied by the project, taken from the spring of a destroyed military vehicle in Ukraine). The blade was heated in a coke-burning forge and hand-forged. The bevels were shaped with a belt grinder and hand filing. Hardening was done by quenching in oil from the heat at which magnetism disappears. Tempering was carried out in an oven at 230°C for 1.5 hours. The blade was finished by sharpening with a micro-bevel, honing with polishing paste, and waxing with Renaissance Wax.
Handle:
The fittings are yellow and red brass, made from recycled material from sports competition participant plaques. The light section is white-tailed deer antler, from shed antlers found in the forest. The Ukrainian flag colors are represented with artificial handle material made of recycled plastic. The wooden section is curly birch, stained brown with ROC Narvi dye in a yellow-brown tone. The handle was assembled piece by piece around the tang with epoxy glue (hidden tang, i.e. no riveting), then shaped freehand by grinding with a belt grinder, files, sandpaper, and polished with steel wool. The finishing treatment was light oiling with linseed oil-based varnish and Renaissance Wax.
Sheath:
The sheath is made of vegetable-tanned leather with a wooden liner of plywood, sewn with waxed nylon thread, and fitted with a brass belt loop rivet and D-ring. It was hand-stitched to shape, with embossing done by hand using an antler bone tool (a Ukrainian trident motif made freehand with a model). The sheath was dyed with ROC Narvi dye in a yellow-brown tone and finished with Renaissance Wax.
The knife is a carving knife. It is intentionally angled slightly backward in the hand to make carving easier. The handle is curly birch. The fitting is brass. The spacers are vulcanized fiber. The sheath is cowhide with a birch liner. The sheath is protected with G2000 wax. The sheath’s metal collar is bent and filed from a coat hanger hook.
My knife is a fusion of a Finnish puukko and a Japanese sword. The idea is the tip of a katana—a weapon that can also be used as a tool. The fitting is brass. The handle is apple wood. The spacers are vulcanized fiber. The handle pin is brass. The sheath is cowhide, also treated with G2000 wax. The liner of the knife is oak. The sheath’s metal collar is made from a coat hanger hook.
A “Vyshyvanka”-style engraving on the metal of the handle. On the spine side, at the base of the handle, there is also a small sunflower engraving.
The handle is olive wood from my own garden. I chose olive wood as the material because it is a resilient plant—one might say stubborn—and even when it is cut or moved from one place to another, it regenerates and continues to grow even stronger. An olive tree can live for hundreds of years. The wood has been dried for 1.5 years.
Finished with olive oil.
Sheath: black leather.
An abstract pattern is filed into the spine side of the handle’s metal.
The handle is olive wood from my own garden.
Finished with olive oil.
Sheath: black leather.
I wanted to bring out as much of Ukraine as possible in the knife. The trident and the phrase Slava Ukraini were the first things that came to mind. The blade would be made of leaf spring, and I chose the fittings based on color—brass would work beautifully with blue. Birch bark was chosen because decorations are easy to make on it, and birch also grows in Ukraine. The main materials would be spring steel, birch bark, brass, and vegetable-tanned leather.
The blade is hand-forged, the fittings are handmade, and the birch bark was collected from birch trees in my own forest. After forging the blade, the main focus was on assembling the handle, which requires great precision to maintain the best possible visual appearance. After that came the tapping in of the slot inlays and the stitching of the sheath. Finally—and one of the most important steps—the dyeing and finishing of the entire piece.
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These knives and blades are being sold in Hellman Auctions’ online auction, which opens on September 16th. You can participate in the auction by registering here. You can also order a reminder about the start of the auction by joining the forged into a knife mailing list from the front page.
