May 21 – The Knife Making Continues

May 21 – The Knife Making Continues

Ok…while I continue to cool my heels waiting for the weekend to test the Remington we will continue on this skinning knife project…

One of the cool things about making your own knife is the flexibility to design it the way you want…or the way you assume you want.  Commercial production knives are by design made to be sold,…and often times designed to catch the eye more than perform their functions usefully.  Essentially what I am saying is an ugly knife may serve its’ purpose more than a classy looking knife.

One of the most annoying things about skinning an animal…especially a big one is having to constantly re-sharpen your knife during the process.  This of course could be the result of using a crappy knife, but having a double cutting surface…especially in tight corners can make things last a little longer. 

I’ve decided that with this blade I will make it a full tang…meaning one piece of metal encompasses the whole knife from the point of the blade to the butt….and I’m going to shape it to be fully functional.  Meaning I’m going to give it a tongue depressor shape with a sharp edge on both sides.  I’m also going to serrate one portion to give it a “saw” function.  I’m narrowing the blade to take some of the weight off of it too.  The steel is going to be hardened, so I don’t have to worry about it snapping under pressure.  Having a blade the same thickness from point to hilt would be over kill.

So…first thing we do is draw out a template of generally what I envision this beast will look like:

Then I place that templates over  the steel stock I made out of the spring steel and cut away the excess with an angle grinder and a flap disk

Now it’s time to head over the belt sander where I begin to reduce the thickness as well as refine the shape a bit

Finally we smooth out the whole thing to check our progress…Not bad…but not good enough….the handle area will still need to be reduced a little, and I’m not quite happy with the tang…that needs a little bit of reduction too.  That said,…not a bad point to call it quits for today and start up again tomorrow!