First 'from scratch' stock removal knife

[MattW]

I've finally sort of finished my first 'from scratch' stock removal bushcraft knife made for my better half. It was designed and sized to fit her hand, so is fairly small. I filed it from 01 stock to a convex grind and it uses black fibre liners and curly birch scales. Heat treat was by Mick Wardell. There are plenty of mistakes (and plenty of things I'd do differently next time ), but it's a 'user' so overall I'm quite pleased:

best
Matt

 

[Tack]

Matt,
For a "user" this knife is very impressive, and filed from 01 as well, must have been hard work.
I'd be interested to know what mistakes you made and what you would do different.
tack

 

[BorderReiver]

Very nice,she will be pleased.

 

[Marts]

Impressive work Matt.

Well done

 

[Buckshot]

That looks gorgeous Matt
I really like the spacers/ wood combo.

Mark

 

[MattW]

Thanks for the kind words guys

Matt,
For a "user" this knife is very impressive, and filed from 01 as well, must have been hard work.
I'd be interested to know what mistakes you made and what you would do different.
tack

Hi Tack,
Well it was fairly hard work - not rocket science by any means, just long winded!

Lessons learned? well here are a few :

Hacksawing 3mm O1 takes forever - I ended up chain-drilling round the profile of the blade using a pillar drill and then hacksawing between the holes.
New b'stard files were worth buying - old files (while still useable) just made everything take so much longer.
Filing the plunge of the grind is difficult - I couldn't get a nice crisp transition - I need to work on this (next blade just started!).
Stop filing before you get tired - I lost concentration and slipped a couple of times, creating a load of work filing and sanding scratches out of 'finished' parts of the blade.
When 'rubbing' the blade using wet and dry, use single strokes in one direction - don't rub back and forth - it creates little rough patches in the finish where the grit of the paper reverses direction.
Leaving a 'blunt' edge to help mitigate decarburisation of the edge during heat treat is something of a trade off - it's hard work taking it to the final edge using wet and dry and stones when you've been a little cautious and have left a 1mm edge!

I'm sure I'll think of more - I'll add them to the list.

cheers
Matt

 

[Shinken]

Well done matt that knife is the DADDY!

 

[scruff]

Very nice work indeed!

 

[g4ghb]

That looks great mate! - very nice indeed


The fact you say it is small for your better halfs hands it is great proportion as it just looks a std sized woody from the pic's!

 

[Biddlesby]

Quite pleased? It's lovely! How did you do all the grinding?

 

[MattW]

Quite pleased? It's lovely! How did you do all the grinding?

Thanks
I just used files - I did try to use a belt sander at first (one of the handheld ones clamped down to the bench), but it was imposible to see what I was doing and control the cut - so it was files, wet and dry and elbow grease

best
Matt

 

[Snufkin]

Very nice work, way better than my first attempt.

 

[leon-b]

nice work
i would love to make my own knife but i would probably ruin it
i think i will start with making a handle and using a ready made blade

 

[MattW]

nice work
i would love to make my own knife but i would probably ruin it
i think i will start with making a handle and using a ready made blade

That's what I did - I handled a couple of ready made blades (and a few SAK's) and then thought I'd have a go at making a blade.

Still not heat treated my own blade though - not had the bottle to try yet

best
Matt

 

[snock]

That's one of the best looking knifes I've seen for a good while!

Well done!!!

 

[Scally]

lovely knife i bet shes pleased make sure she give you a silver coin for that one...

 

[andyn]

Thats a seriously impressive bit of handy work...Well done, you should be very pleased with yourself.

 

[Dougster]

Superb - and by hand! Incredible. Well done.

 

[woodchuck]

Very goooooood
Beautiful work¡¡