Knife-Making Malarky - First Attempt

[mark a.]

I finally had a go at making my own knife, after reading and seeing countless knives on here. So if you want to see the pinnacle of knife-making beauty, look elsewhere...

My wife bought me the Nordic kit from Brisa (carbon blade, curly burch and whatnot) for Christmas, so I put it together. This sounds vaguely impressive until I tell you that this was Christmas 2005... Oh well, I got round to it eventually, and it took me blimmin' ages. But I'm inordinately proud of it, because it's all mine.

So, here it is in all its glory.

Bad points: Not the best fit and finish in the world, but my main gripe is that curly birch is hardly uniform or overly impressive. Still, it's "unique"!

Good points: I love the handle shape and feel. It's relatively thin and not fussily sculpted. Also, probably unique are a couple of "thumb holes" on each side near the top, not far from the antler. Ok, so these came about by a mistake with the saw, but they've actually turned out really well, supplying some nice placement markers for different holds.

The sheath came with the kit. I did a wee bit of wet forming, and as I don't have any leather die I decided to keep it "natural", just rubbing in some leather wax too make it roughly water resistant.

The blade is nice and sharp, and the handle is really comfortable in the hand to use - I prefer it to my Mora so far.

The only downside with the blade is that the spine doesn't produce any sparks on the firesteel. Does anyone know whether it's the black stuff, or do I need to give it a good attack with the file?

Cheers, and thanks for looking!

Mark

 

[Ogri the trog]

Don't do yourself down Mark - thats a nice knife you have got there. I made a similar kit as my first attempt.
As for sparks, the spine on mine is a bit rough so it needs to be flattened - but I doubt if a file will touch it - try an oil stone or a ginding wheel but don't let the blade get hot. Just take off enough to get a sharp corner on the spine.

ATB

Ogri the trog

 

[penvisser]

looks good to me mate. All is new the first time and I am sure you get better every time. If i look at my first knive and at the latest i see a lot of improvement but they are all special to me.

Best regards,

Penvisser

 

[mark a.]

As for sparks, the spine on mine is a bit rough so it needs to be flattened - but I doubt if a file will touch it - try an oil stone or a ginding wheel but don't let the blade get hot. Just take off enough to get a sharp corner on the spine.

Unlike my Mora, which had a really round spine that needed a fair bit of work on the waterstone, this knife seems to have a really square spine. So in theory it should be great on the firesteel. Would the black stuff have an effect? If needed I can remove it, but I quite like it!

I'm not sure what the Brisa kit came with, but I think it's a Lauri carbon blade. Does anyone have experience with them?

 

[leon-1]

Hi Mark, I have used the Lauri, Lauri PT and the Lauri PTX blades, they are good blades sharpen very well, but they are subject to rust.

The spines are not bad, but they do need a little bit of work, I used the diamond file on my leatherman to square it off, after that it casts a reasonable shower of sparks.

All in all they are quitenice little blades, especially at the cost that you pay for them, I should of said it at the beginning you've done a nice job on that, good effort