Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Sharpening an ulu.... technique???

Posting this here and in the knife page as well. Figured the northern folks might have a bit more experience. What is the proper technique for sharpening an ulu? I just received a nice one for Christmas, and it seems a bit awkward trying to work a curved edge on a conventional rectangular bench stone. I'm pretty anal about edges, and like them surgical sharp. Thanks, 1Minute

All the old Athabascan ladies I've seen that use them all the time use a bench stone to sharpen them. They are just trying to get an edge back and cutting again.

I use a file on mine, but it's made from a carbon-steel saw blade and lends itself well to being sharpened this way.

You might be able to use something like a Lansky to sharpen it, but you'll likely only be able to do half the blade at a time.

I also use a file (Diamond files from 3M) I have come to the conclusion that what works best is a chisel like edge and I only put and angle on one side of the blade.

I'm sure that vary few will agree with me on this. I make my blades from ATS-34 steel and harden them to Rc-52-54. The chisel edge lends it's self to the type of cutting these tools are used for.

What you need to do with an ulu (Inupiaq) or uluaq (Yup'ik) is look for a suitable reasonably flat rock on the beach. The surface of your rock will not be perfectly flat. That's good. Next, find a suitably experienced Eskimo woman and watch her put an edge on her knives.

But realistically, you probably got one of those manufactured ("fake") ulus which may be better, and stainless, steel. While a surgical edge is only sometimes desired for these tools, you can probably accomplish such a feat with a simple flat sharpening stone.

(The "surgical" edge is handy when making strips from a big king. For simple household chores such as pizza cutting, and food chopping, a less fine edge is needed. If you plan to use the ulu for fileting fish or cutting the oil off from your next seal , then you'll want to make sure you've only beveled the one side -which is probably how it came.)

Darrel Farnum of D&C fame used a midsized 3 or 4" vertical fixed belt sander.

Guys: At my urging, the unit my wife bought me for Christmas is a good solid working unit from Knives of Alaska with markings claiming it's constructed from D2 Tool Steel. Whatever, it's a hard SOB. I put in about 1.5 hours on it today on my next to best Arkansas oil stone and think I have it about 90% of the way there. My difficulty is it's fabricated with a fairly short but rounded bevel to the edge, and I need to get some of that crescent shape off to hone it down to what I view as an acceptable tissue cutting edge.

After working with run of the mill shaped knives all my life, it just felt awkward working on the rounded edge with such a small handle. Living here in south eastern Oregon, I don't have many Inuit neighbors around or a great supply of beach rock handy for lessons. As to my intened uses, it's going to have a trial run or two at working up deer/elk and maybe a few summer run steelhead.

I think I'll look for a hard/fine hockey puck shaped oil stone just for maintenance after I get it worked down.

The wife has a real fine set of kitchen and butchering knives, and knows that I will throw a royal fit, if anyone ever uses my hunting/filleting units on a vege or pizza cutting board. Several years ago she and some holiday company totally set me up over a Thanksgiving day meal. I came in from some outside chores to find the turkey carved and MY filleting knife beside the carcass. True to form, I went off like a Roman candle, and the whole house started laughing. It took me about 20 seconds to figure out I'd been had, but it was a royal laugh for the company.

Thanks for the suggestions, and I think I'll get it there with about another 40 minutes tomorrow. 1Minute

Those -KOA- seem like very nice tools. I'm not sure exactly how that particular specimen would fit into one's knife repertoir - I've only seen, never used one. I do think they'd probably be a niche type knife. I can imagine they might be just about perfect for bone splitting chores such as finding the neck joints or popping the rib to cage connections; the ability to applied direct pressure might be very useful. Then again, it might be just the ticket for skinning tough-hided, anyway, critters too.

I have seen many different shapes of Uhoo-lucks out in the bush, where old hand saws are the all time favorite blade material. However they have the perfect shape for skinning of any knife I have ever seen or used. Not one bit of wasted motion in the natural up and down hand motion.

wife has a few of them she got in the North Slope Borough area when working as an intenerant health aide. Point Lay residence make a variety of sizes and generally use a "one-sided" edge or a chisel edge of common carbon steel. She has two preferred ulu's, one very large and then the small most common and handy. I use a file as well-gets them very sharp.

It is a very thought out and useful historically old nomads tool that competes with todays designs.

I got out the stones to buff up some planer blades (building a stock) and did another half hour on the ulu while I had things on the table. It's almost there, and I think another half hour will have it shaving sharp. After that it should just be a maintenance deal.

Last year, before I elected to spend serious dough on one, I asked on this site if it was just a localized gimmick or had some serious utility. Opinion leaned heavily toward the utility side. If a design hangs around for a couple of hundred years, there is usually something to it. Years ago I was seeing dozens of boning knives in the Bahamas that were sharpend down to almost ice pick dimensions and was wondering why such a dangerous implement would be retained. Turns out they are not worn knives, but the perfect too for extracting conchs from their shell (one of the ugliest, but most tastie critters I've ever seen).

Presently I don't see much use in an ulu for bone splitting, but for skinning larger critters, I think it just might be the cat's a$$. I'll wait and pass judgement next fall. Likely it will be the only one in camp, and half of the fun in life is learning new sh-t. 1Minute

The blade on those KOA ulus is hell for stout as I recall, not as thin as what one typically sees on modern versions of the traditional ulu. (That almost seems like an oxymoron, eh?) Then again, when you look at the older stone versions which preceeded the present steel blades, they had similar thickness, by necessity, for strength, yet they were, somehow, sharp enough anyway. I imagine there's plenty to like in this modern version. In skinning you'll use a wrist motion. While that may seem strange to a long-blade user at first - it was to me- I think you'll like the economy of motion after you become accustomed to it. I have a couple of favorites I use when working fish. One is cut from the heavy steel of one of those old two-man crosscut saws. It's perfect for heading and gutting even the biggest kings. Another is made from the thin steel of a decent high-carbon hand-saw blade. (Handsaw steel varies widely in quality.)It makes quick work of filleting salmon, whether to dry or for freezing.

You don't use the ends- just the middle...

Mostly.

Like you say- once you get the factory-cut edge worked out to a real working edge- from there on it is maintainence.

Man! This is a slow slow process. I got closer last night (another hour on a 12 inch Arkansas Stone, but decided to speed the process with a touch of file work this morning. All I did was flatten the teeth on a new file and barely scratched the surface on the ulu. Sure glad I don't do this for a living.

Much as I hate them, I'm going to break out a carbide stone this evening. If this first effort is any indication, this tool should hold an edge for a very very long time. Still beavering away... 1Minute

3 M diamond files

Save the headaches! Get yourself a set of these files. You will be a happy camper.

What does KOA claim to harden the Ulu to? That sounds like a lot of work!

Ironbender: I've had no direct communications with them, so can't answer the hardness question. I just know it's tougher than any of the Buck or Gerber units I own. I broke out a 2 sided carbide stone last night and made some rapid progress with that. I don't normally use that with good knives as it's a bit too aggressive. This AM I went back to a surgical grade Arkansas stone and put the final polish on the edge. It's DANGEROUS sharp now.

One more question now for those who are adept users, and I will go away. With a few test slices I've noticed that it tends to travel toward the flat side. That seems obvious given it carries a single bevel. The questions: For filleting, should the flat side be facing the backbone or the meat? Similarly for skinning. Flat side toward the carcass or the hide??? Just trying to avoid the learn by doing phase here. Thanks, 1Minute

In answer to your question, the Ulu shape you have is going to be prone to not running straight. The scallops of the blade will make it want to turn or twist. Many native women fear scalloped blade knives for this reason. Do I know if this is true? All I know about it has been from asking native women what they liked and disliked in a Ulu blade. I did this before I stared to make them and went around with patterns I made up and got opinions from a large number of women. It was interesting the number that had blades like the shape the one you pictured. Given to them as gifts. These were the ones they said they did not like for the reasons written above.

This is a mistake I made with my last bunch of the blades that I made. I got them way to hard, the heat treat-er I used was outside and dummy me thought it would be great having a blade that would stay sharp for ever (Not going to happen anyway) Long story short, It's going to be really hard to find a Ulu that is perfect, it really comes down to basically two blade shapes that satisfies most say 95% of the users. One is huge and used on fish most of the time has the handsaw handle to push the blade through the fish.

I have a long mental list of the do's and don'ts on the making and shaping of these blades and the handle material that has given complete satisfaction.

The funny thing about the Ulu's made from handsaw blades is that where the heat treat has no harding, they don't use that part of the blade (where the teeth are is where the temper is). Goodness I think I could write a book on this subject.

3Sixbits: Always interested in learning something new. Any chance you could post a few photos and discuss the vicissitudes of the various sizes and shapes???? 1Minute

This picture posting thingy is for me like reinventing the wheel.

Seems like if I have more than a coffee break between postings I forget everything I ever knew about posting pictures.

I think that templates of blade designs would be the best way to show what the shapes that are more or less common would be the most descriptive. I got to thinking about this (it I was going to write a book thing) What would be the best way for people to understand that there are as many different shapes of blades as there are the people that have made the darn things.

I have witnessed I don't know how many "Bull sessions" between women on the high and low points of blade shape. The most common complant about their knives is not a single one wants a thick blade Ulu, Thin blades rule! I wonder if that has more to do with sharpening than it does blade flex?

Skinning only Ulu's have one thing in common that I have noted, for the lucky few women that have them, they wanted them to have short width from handle to tip of blade. I really feel there is more human arm and wrist motion incorporated in these blade designs, than is thought about by the people that make the blades. How do I get there? If you imagine a heavy paper template and hand it to a women, the first thing they do is to give the pattern a sweeping wrist motion or they depending on the work to be done give the body motion for the intended work to be done with the Ulu. Another good indication is when they want a knife for filleting fish. The want to push the blade looking for tip depression or flex.

Some history lessons about this blade shape maybe universal and could be part of ever race and people? I have a strong suspicion this may be the case. Remember that the name Ula or Uoo-luck means "woman's knife and Uoo-luck means means "Men's knife", I think?

We see what leathers call a head knife with a different handle (giving the blade a different motion) that is a European common design, used all over the world. TANDYS used to sell these (I don't know that they still do or not). If you could find a picture from Tandy's of a head knife you will see a very exceptable blade shape for and Ula. Different handle entirely.


Or just click on this link and view two different head knifes.

HEAD KNIFE

3Sixbits: I'd agree that good illustrations would convey ones thoughts much better that photographs. If you decide to work up a book or bulletin, sign me up for one. Now, another question: Given the variety of styles, is it a universal practice that they are only beveled on one side?

Regarding the link: Now I have item one for next years Christmas list. Thanks, 1Minute