Home Forums Gear Knives and Blades What was the first knife you made or tried to make??

BW,




I prolly skin +/- 60 critters a year, give or take, and most of em' with a different knife each time.





Just don't always post pix of every one.

JAPPFT,


GWB

So you're a collector?

I've been called worse names! LOL











[img]http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e129/glenn1221/Blades/IMG_0268.1_zpspripebnr.jpg[/img]

Ya' know, after lookin' I really need to update. Lotta stuff ain't there. Dowell's, Winston's, Honeycutts, Ingrams,Hendrix, Mike Miller, Slaughterville, Doziers, Howe Mountains, May, Lloyd and Rossi to name a few.

Ya'!


GWB

PS: I guess I've stepped on this thread a plenty. Off to the
"Petting Zoo" in the AM. Ain't killed nor skint' a critter in 12 days. Starting to itch and scratch. SDD (shooting deficit disorder)is settin' in.

See ya'll next Monday.

GW is not a collector. He is an Accumulator and needs some professional help as he noted in his shortcomings of what ain't there.

Enjoying the OP's pics and storyline.
Tim

Morning boys, or is it girls? GEEZE, reading those rants above you would think somebody around here is having PMS problems. But there are always those on every forum who hijack threads and go off on a rant that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the original intent of the thread. I don't know if that is because they do not read what is in the thread, they do not look at the photographs, or they do not comprehend what they read and see, but they obviously missed it. Yep. It went right over their heads. Either that or they are just common jackasses who like to hijack threads.

And what is always common to those kinds of people is that they never seem to have anything to contribute to the original intent of the thread, but they make snide comments designed to show they are superior to the OP. I already said I am not a smart knife collector, but that is one more thing they missed.

So for the benefit of those silly sumbitches around here who can't read, this thread is about how a common man who is not a professional knife maker nor a knife collector can make a knife using ordinary hand tools and common materials like old saw blades and have a knife that works very well. These are WORKING knives made to be used and not intended for collectors. You boys with the menstral problems need to chill out because there are people here who might like to try to do something besides bitch, piss, moan, and make smart assed comments. I get it. You have a knife collection. You don't get it. This is about MAKING knives.


I gotta go to a funeral this morning and won't be back until this afternoon. I'll continue with the knife project then. And Tim, this sort of crap is exactly why I didn't want to do this here, but FCUK'EM and their PMS issues. I am going to do it anyway.

I like to work with Axis antler. Parts of the antler are
relatively straight and not too pithy. I use old carbon steel
butcher, boner or paring knives. Reconfigure the blades (turn a 10-12" blade into 5 1\2"). I make sheaths for 'em.
People really go for that Axis antler.

I like stag too Poboy, but never tried Axis. Elk antler is soft inside but I just fill it with epoxy and it seems to work okay. Sure would like to see some of your work and hear your comments on what I do and how I do it because I am always looking for ways to improve outside of buying more tools. I am not going into knife making so I don't need them.

But to continue with the project for those who might be interested:



After you have pinned and soldered all of your nickel silver, put it on your belt sander and take it down to the steel in the tang. Now you can see why it is important to get a good solder joint. There are no holidays in any of these.



Clean up everything so you can now mark the micarta to cut the panels that will go in the handle.



I use a carbide blade on a powered miter saw to make the cuts, but you could use about any saw. This just allows very precise cuts that make good, tight fitting pieces.



Then drill the micarta for the pins just like the nickel silver using the holes in the tang for a guide.

Mark and cut all the panels and fit them close. Then glue them in using epoxy and lightly peeen the pins. Don't do that much or the micarta will split and don't do it at all on wood , horn, or stag because they split easy.



I use the tilt bed on the Delta belt sander to true up all my cuts on the nickel silver and micarta, but before I got it, I used a file. The sander is just quicker.



After the epoxy has set up really well, take a saw and hack off as much of the extra micarta as possible to cut down on the amount of grinding you have to do. Be careful and don't get over into the handle area though.



Then grind it down to the tang. I dip it in water while doing the grinding because it causes a lot of heat even using an 80 grit belt.

Now use a rasp and file to shape the handle. Some people use the belt sander, but it will eat micarta and nickel silver so quick, I don't use it. It takes longer using the files, but I don't make any mistakes because if you do at this stage, you have screwed the pooch.



This is at the 320 grit finish stage and already, I don't like it. It looks like dog poo. It would have been fine all ivory or all black, but this does not work for me.



So I took out the ivory micarta and put in the black.



Then I rasp and file it to shape, sand, and buff out with jewelers rouge with the buffing wheel. I use a small wheel on a Dremel tool to do that because I don't have a big buffer. It takes a lot more hand sanding to get it ready for buffing, but what the heck? I'm not in a hurry.

This is the end product. I got a little fancy with the sheath, but it seems to go well with that knife.

When you have curves in the handle and multiple panels, fitting the odd angles on them is more difficult than when you have a straight handle design. I didn't draw that handle like that. It just worked out like that in forging and I was so tired fooling with that business, I didn't say a word because I was ready to quit. We also didn't start with a big enough piece of stock, so we couldn't draw it out far enough to make the blade as long as I drew it on paper. Like I say, it was my first and only try at forging a blade and I'll never do it again. waaaaay too much trouble.

Sure will appreciate any comments about what I did from those of you who know how to do it correctly. I am just a common guy with no training and few tools, but I do enjoy messing around with this kind of stuff and happy with the result. Knife collectors will poo poo it because it isn't up to the standards they are accustomed to. I get that. But it will do fine for the average man who just wants to make his own knife and use it to skin, gut, and butcher his game and that is all I ever wanted to be able to do.

Nice work and report on that knife. Don't see much to make a suggestion on---if it works for you, then IT WORKS!
There is a ton of ways to skin a cat, or so I am told.

This was my first (and probably last) effort at forged blades. Geedubya talked me out of the black handled skinner and I kept the other one.



Thanks for looking.

I like your stag handle knife better anyway, so you kept the right one. I notice you use a guard on your knives. I built some like that but discovered it got in the way. Maybe it's just me and the way I use it. But it is traditional and looks great. I like traditional stuff and it's why I like stag. It just seems to be right on a knife.




Well that is the problem you see and part of the learning curve you have to go through because that knife didn't work for me at all and that is why you don't see my sun burst pin pattern on it, but boy it sure would have looked good on that knife. I don't put that pattern on it until I have tested it. I am sad to have to report that after all of that work, I took it to camp and managed to kill the buck pictured way back up this thread. My buddy and I skinned, gutted and butchered it and packed it in my big cooler. Just as we finished, the guy who helped me forge that blade rode in on his 4 wheeler to hunt with us for a couple of days.

Of course, he was interested to see the knife because he had not seen it since I left his shop with the raw blade. So we got cleaned up and fixed an adult beverage and sat on the front porch and talked about knives while I got out my india stone and began to touch up the edge on the knife. It was then that I noticed a couple of rough spots in the blade. As I examined them closer, it had very small saw blade spots along the edge. WTF???

I handed it to the guy who helped me forge it and asked him what was going on with that crap. He said it looked like we may have got it too hot and messed up the steel in that spot. He handed it back to me and said, just sharpen those spots out and it'll be okay. So I tried that but it got spots in other places on the blade. Then I handed it to him and said, it's yours now. YOU sharpen out the rough spots.

Like I said, no more forged blades for me, but it took about 50 hours of work building that one and the sheath before I figured that out and if I ever think about building another forged blade knife, I want you to kick my ass as hard as you can. From now on, I'll just stick with old saw blades.

Neat build. I like seeing the knives being built. Would like to see more builds documented. Someday I am going to build my own.

I made my first one in 1999. Back then we didn't have the Internet like we have now and I didn't know about the knife supply places, so I used micarta salvaged from an electrical pannel and an old saw blade. It was rough looking, but it worked. Today we have books about how to build knives and You Tube video's and knife forums like this one and guys like Tim to give advice and offer encouragement and all of that can be a BIG help in avoiding mistakes and building a better knife. I wish all of that had been around back then. It sure would have saved me a lot of headaches. They say experience is the best teacher, but it also leaves a lot of scar tissue that I would just as soon avoid.

I also enjoy designing and making the scabbards, but then, I just like making things period. It gives an old goat like me something constructive to do.

I have a series of photo's made from the get go in designing and building a fancy knife scabbard if any of you fellas are interested in seeing that let me know and I'll post them here.

I would like to see the sheath build.

This scabbard does not have the typical shape because of the big gut hook on my knife. I made three gut hooks before I finally got the hook big enough, the pilot or lead long enough, and the angle to the blade right for it to work, but it made the knife ugly. To me, form follows function, so the ugly does not matter. Does it do what I wanted it to do is the issue I am concerned with. It was made to only do skinning and gutting. The blade is too short for much butchering, but I knew that to begin with. I have other knives for that chore. Here it is laid out on a piece of oil tanned leather. I decided to make a nice scabbard to try to make up for the ugly way it came out in the design.



Here are a piece of oak tanned and oil tanned leather that I am going to use and I am drawing the pattern onto them.



Here is part of the pattern cut in the oil tanned leather.


Here the oil tanned piece has the turquoise studs attached,(I get them from Tandy Leather) has been hole punched to the top, and is ready to sew to the main scabbard top.

Here you just sew the decorative oil tanned piece to the scabbard top piece through the pre punched holes.



Dampen the oak tanned leather and stamp or draw the pattern you want on it and allow it to dry. You can get as fancy or creative as you want to or have the tools to do it.



Now we are ready to fold the belt loop and sew it and then punch the holes and sew the top piece through the welting and the bottom piece.



After sewing the knife fits right, so now it goes to the belt sander to sand the outer edges nice and smooth, then it is time to apply the finish.

I used Kiwi brown shoe polish thinned with lighter fluid and a small paint brush to apply the finish. When it dried, I lightly buffed it with a cotton cloth and sprayed it with Sadalac which is a leather finish/protector.