So I made a Knife

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So I made a knife and I thought I'd share it with you guys (Actually I just got ripped apart by a wolf yesterday and to fill the emptiness that the lost game left, I though it would be a good time to show off this knife I made recently):

 

Here it is from the other side:

 

Here I'm gripping it:

 

It feels good in my hand... well I shaped it for my hand plus the handle is quite thick so my fingers don't dig into my palm.

 

This is only the second knife I made so there are some flaws, imperfections, and what not. You can see in the photo above that a bit of the tang is visible right below the handle scale.

There's a bit of a gap between the handle scales and the tang:

So it's not as pretty as it could be but it works. I've used it for a variety of purposes, mostly shaping wood.

The steel is salvaged from a piece of scrap that I found and spark tested. I shaped it using a hacksaw and an angle grinder. For heat treating, I quenched it in used cooking oil and tempered it in a toaster oven.

The handle scales are made out of rambutan wood held unto to the tang using aluminium pins and clear epoxy.

[Mel Guille]

Nice! Not a knife expert, but it looks like a solid piece of kit.

Did you have a particular type of use in mind when you were making it? 

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10 hours ago, Mel Guille said:

Nice! Not a knife expert, but it looks like a solid piece of kit.

Did you have a particular type of use in mind when you making it? 

Thanks. For this I wanted a kind of camp knife or survival knife. A bit of a multipurpose tool but specifically with a bit of heft for chopping and a pointy end for drilling and fine carving wood. Oh and it also has a 90 degree spine for scraping wood, bamboo, etc. and striking ferro rods.

[SnowWalker]

It looks pretty to me. Love that you made it with scrap metal

[Thrasador]

I like watching that Forged in Fire show or whatever it's called where amateur blacksmith or bladesmiths compete to forge the best blade....

A part of me always wanted to be a blacksmith, or a glass blower....

[Mroz4k]

It's cool, but if this was meant to be survival knife, I have one issue with it - it's missing a guard. Trust me, if you plan to use it for anything in the outdoors, the last thing you want is your fingers getting sweaty, working with your knife and your fingers sliding down onto the blade. I mean, the guard is there, it's just rather small for my taste.

I'd probably use this knife for hunting like a spearhead (if I needed to do that :D), but I'd definitely not do any woodwork with it. Otherwise, it looks very cool!

 

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10 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

It's cool, but if this was meant to be survival knife, I have one issue with it - it's missing a guard. Trust me, if you plan to use it for anything in the outdoors, the last thing you want is your fingers getting sweaty, working with your knife and your fingers sliding down onto the blade. I mean, the guard is there, it's just rather small for my taste.

I'd probably use this knife for hunting like a spearhead (if I needed to do that :D), but I'd definitely not do any woodwork with it. Otherwise, it looks very cool!

 

I thought about adding a guard or even a bolster but the stock I had to work with wasn't wide enough and I wanted a full tang knife for durability. I don't find the grip slippery when it gets wet. This particular wood grips rather well in wet conditions, plus the recesses in the hilt aid with gripping. Although with the tropical rain and humidity, a bigger problem is rust. It's oiled and a magnetite patina has already started to develop but it can still rust sometimes even when stored in a sheath (another reason not to have a guard or bolster).

I've had no problems using it for carving. I know that a shorter blade is preferable for carving but in some situations you can just grip a big knife by the blade. I know it seems rather dangerous for people who don't know how, but I'm used to it and as long as you never allow your hand to slide up and down the blade, the worst thing that can happen is that your hand will develop a rather rough callous.