Knife making competition-entrants list and entrys only

here we go to avoid confusion pleas eonly post your entry in this thread

Made own blade

1, abominable_scouse_monster
2, Belabear
3, DaveBromley
4, Bilmo
5, Fat ferret
6, southey
7, leighwill
8, Dave53...... Heat treament needed.
9, grey-array ( Hand Forged blade, first timer)
10, capt.dunc
11, Paulnb57

Bought or modified blade

1, angst
2, mountainm
3,man of tanith
4, Dannytsg
5, Water Gypsy
6, resnikov
7, dave53
8, Dark Horse Dave
9, BeerHunter
10, PyroPhil

Pro

1, Brancho
2, HillBill
3, Lannyman8
4, Gill
5, Stew
6, Warren Bond
7,
8,


rules-
maximum cost of components £50 (not counting postage and packaging)

any componants you already have to be marked with an asterix

3 catagories
1 own made blade
2 purchased blade
3 pro knife maker
be nice to keep it with the £50 maximum budget

split between amateurs and professional makers should any choose to enter

competition to run from 1st of August until 7th January

winner voted for using a public poll running from the 7th until the 14th of january-please note i have a life outside of BCUK so i may not post the poll bang on the clock striking twelve into the 7th, it will be posted on the 7th at some point

photos must be posted of the items before assembly and after it is made

links of suppliers can be included (this in part may act as a reference for people to be pointed to for knife making supplies and also allow the cost of materials to be checked)

No knife making kits to allow an even playing field

Sheath not essential for the competition

a prize of a personal First Aid Kit for the amateur winner of both Cats

Who's game for a laugh?

Add on from hillbill below-
I have just spoken to Sam ( man of tanith) and i have agreed to do heat treatment for people who wish to make their own blades. I reckon you all should I do not wish to earn anything from this, but there will be costs involved with the work. There would be £20 to pay in total. So if 10 enter and want HT doing then it will only be £2 per blade. Plus return postage, per person. The HT will be done in an Evenheat digitally controlled knife kiln.

If anyone wishes to use stainless then i can heat treat that too. But if anyone does can you stick to one type, Sandvik 12c27 for example as they all HT differently. Much easier to have a few of the same type.

So if any of our members wish to enter but were worried by the HT process then fear not. It'll be in good hands.


DRIFTWOODWALKER HAS OFFERED A NECK KNIFE AS A PRIZE, I AM GOING TO ADD ANOTHER POLL BETWEEN THE WINNER OF AMATUER WHO MAKES OWN BLAED AND AMATUER WHO USED A PREMADE BLADE ONCE THE TWO WINNERS ARE DECIDED. IN ORDERTO PREVENT POSSIBLE COMPLAINTS ALTHOUGH I WILL PARTICIPATE I SHALL NOT ENTER MYSELF IN THE COMPETITION
Last edited by Man of Tanith; 26-07-2012 at 16:21.
 
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capt.dunc

Forager
Oct 11, 2011
100
0
dundee
i've made it as bushcrafty as possible and tried out some new stuff along the way:
used a bow drill to light my forge
used the knife to cut the leather for it's own sheath
i was using some antler to smooth the edges of the leather, so i decided to try carving some. made an id tag.
and rounded off by having a go at some nettle cordage to put it all together.




raw materials and finished product (you can see my reflection in the handle in the first pic)
1
DSC02347.jpg

2
DSC02348.jpg

back of sheath and knife with template
3
DSC02349.jpg

knife securely in place
4
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faults 2, very small pit in the middle of the handle by the 2nd v notch, and a material defect by the hole nearest the blade (this only came to light when i started drilling, but it doesn't affect the use or strength i've just left it)
5
DSC02351.jpg



all in all i'm very pleased and the knife sharpened beautifully (enough to shave some hair from arm)


final thoughts; anyone else thinking of entering this competition, do it! don't be be put off by other people's wonderful knives, just make the best knife you can and learn from it. whenever i look at my first knife i think, wow, i made that, and remind myself that there was a time at the end of the bronze age when even my poor attempt would of been a gift worthy of a king or emperor.


cheers, dunc.
 

Angst

Full Member
Apr 15, 2010
1,927
3
52
Hampshire
www.facebook.com
here it is....total cost no more than 25 quid....mora 12C27 blade, white corian scales, 1.5mm black fibre liners, 0.8mm hi-impact red liners, 1/4-inch black acetal rod/pins and 4mm nickel silver rod/pins....i'll probably do some more on it before jan, needs a bit of sanding here and there, but for now....(and by the way....theres a white line on the leading edge that appears to be between the blade and the liner, trust me its a trick of the light, theres no thick white line on the knife ((i left the dodgy leading edge stage long ago as most of you know)) and its not a 1mm thick line of glue or anything...i'll try get more pics when sun's out)

parts.jpg


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Dannytsg

Native
Oct 18, 2008
1,825
6
England
My amateur entry is as follows:

Knife Blade: 8 1/4" stainless bowie blade with full tang and brass bolster - £9.95 from Heinnie Haynes

Purple heart handle scales: £7 the pair posted off the bay.

Brass rod from eBay - £3 including postage.

Clear yacht varnish: free off the parents.

Quick setting 2 part epoxy resin: local family bargains store - 99p

A grand total of £20.94 for materials

So I've decided to have a god at doing an iconic Bowie knife. People at wok have started calling me crocodile dan dee so I thought this to be a fitting tribute to that sentiment.

I started as I always do by checking, marking and fitting the bolster. Then i did the marking and roughing out of the shape of the scales. They were cut out and drilled before getting a rough edge sanding.

I encountered a problem on this in that 3mm rod was too small for pins and 5mm rid too big so I decided I'd buy the 5mm rid and I bored out the holes in the tang and scales.

The scales were then glued and clamped to the tang and then left to set dry and solid. Once the scales had dried they were rough shaped with a deemed and sanding bit and then finely sanded with progressively finer grits of sand paper.

I have left the handle on this nice and chunky as I have big hands but it is very nice to hold and has great balance around the bolster.

2 coats of clear yacht varnish has enriched the colour of the scales immensely after sanding them. Then they were sanded and buffed down to leave it looking as it does.

The final effort was to give the blade a full oil down and small wire wooling and to buff up the brass bolster.

Here is the finished result.

bcde92b1-10f7-fee4.jpg


bcde92b1-1104-07c1.jpg


bcde92b1-1111-60ee.jpg


bcde92b1-111e-3e06.jpg


bcde92b1-112a-092d.jpg

Tape measure for size comparison

bcde92b1-1155-3669.jpg

One showing how it fits in my hand.

Overall I really like this knife. I've put about 20 hours into it and the rewards are great. I'm also very pleased with the purple heart scales a the colour is all natural and I think the bras bolster and pins are a very nice compliment.

Hope you all like.
 
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Mike Bowler

Full Member
Dec 31, 2008
241
6
Cheshire UK
Made own blade

1, abominable_scouse_monster
2, Belabear
3, DaveBromley
4, Bilmo
5, Fat ferret
6, southey
7, leighwill
8, Dave53...... Heat treament needed.
9, grey-array ( Hand Forged blade, first timer)
10, capt.dunc
11, Paulnb57


Bought or modified blade

1, angst
2, mountainm
3,man of tanith
4, Dannytsg
5, Water Gypsy
6, resnikov
7, dave53
8, Dark Horse Dave
9, BeerHunter
10, PyroPhil

Pro

1, Brancho
2, HillBill
3, Lannyman8
4, Gill
5, Stew
6, Warren Bond
7,
8,
 
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Heres my entry ( I forgot to take work in progress picks tho :( )

Rose wood handle £6.50
3.5" Damascus steel blade £16.95
Brass ferrule £6.50

I had a lot of problems with making this knife, I'd never worked with rose wood before and I dont think I will again!!
It polished up lovely, but it took forever to sand down into any real shape, I used all sorts of grades of sand paper and chisels and files, didnt realise it would be so tough!
It was also my first time fitting a ferrule and I messed up a little, just couldnt get the end of the knife to fit snugly into the ferrule, so I had to seek advice from the wise one (dad) for advice on how to fix it!

Once that was sorted, I glued the ferrule on, mixing sawdust off the knife into the glue so it kind of matched! I thought that had gone swimmingly, until I awoke next morning to find that I had probably been a bit too over enthusiastic with the glue!
So the long process of sanding and chiseling started again to try and get rid of the excess glue which was plastered everywhere, again advice was sort from the wise one, who guided me on what to do!

For some reason we have a large amount of olive wood lying around, which dad has been experimenting with, and we decided to use a bit of this on the knife too :) This was partly to hide some untidyness, add length which was lost because I messed up and we just thought it looked nice!

It has been an interesting project for me, Ive learnt alot with making this knife and im pretty pleased at how it turned out concidering I thought id totally messed it up!


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HillBill

Bushcrafter through and through
Oct 1, 2008
8,165
159
W. Yorkshire
Oldwoodyrock- Those are nice mate, and very different. I see no reason why you cant enter one. Only one though lol :)

Watergypsy..... Nice one :)
 

Buckshot

Mod
Mod
Jan 19, 2004
6,471
352
Oxford
Made own blade

1, abominable_scouse_monster
2, Belabear
3, DaveBromley
4, Bilmo
5, Fat ferret
6, southey
7, leighwill
8, Dave53...... Heat treament needed.
9, grey-array ( Hand Forged blade, first timer)
10, capt.dunc
11, Paulnb57

Bought or modified blade

1, angst
2, mountainm
3,man of tanith
4, Dannytsg
5, Water Gypsy
6, resnikov
7, dave53
8, Dark Horse Dave
9, BeerHunter
10, PyroPhil
11, Buckshot

Pro

1, Brancho
2, HillBill
3, Lannyman8
4, Gill
5, Stew
6, Warren Bond
7,
8,


OK I'll have a go at this too if I may
I've had an MOD knife blank for a while now looking for an excuse to spend some time on it
I'll post some pics once done, I've already taken the 'before' pic

Cheers

Mark
 

BeerHunter

Tenderfoot
Jul 12, 2012
78
0
England
knife03.jpg


The finished article. Blank from Ronnie Sunshine - £16.00(ish - it was a while ago and I can't find the recipt.). Bolts were a fiver from Ebay (will definitely be making my own in future!).

The maple was free from Freecycle, and the mahogany was salvaged from my Nan's dressing table (the whirring noise is her, turning in her grave). 3 coats of danish oil, and a top coat of wax.

In pre-assembly stage:

DSCI0985.jpg
 
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