I've forged a small neck knife for my girlfriend before, and put a handle on a Condor Bushlore, but this was my first time making a full-sized knife from start to finish. I've wanted a woodlore for as long as I can remember, so I designed the knife based on that (sort of). The handle is around 4 3/4" and the blade is just shy of 5", so substantially bigger than a woodlore. At the time of making I justified this as wanting something heaftier for slashing and batoning, but in hindsight I think I just wanted to make the knife as 10 year old me imagined it (at the time I only had a SAK and Ray's knife seemed huge!). I decided to go down the stock removal route, beginning with 4mm O1 steel. I did the bevels using a Gough style bevel jig, which worked perfectly. The total grind angle is somewhere around 22 degrees, full scandi. I did my best at heat treating in my gas forge, using a steel muffle and a thermocouple to check the temp. I can't be certain I got full hardness, but I managed a pretty consistent soak at the required temp prior to quench. I tempered to 270 C, so ideally 58RC but quite possibly a bit softer if my forge temps were off. I made sure to grind through the decarbonisation on the whole blade, allowing me to achieve a very hard and sharp spine for sparking ferrorods. I went with a piece of B grade curly birch for the handle because it's what I had to hand, and thin leather as a liner material for the same reason. Time will tell how those decisions play out.
Having tested the knife a bit (hence the dirt), I'm really happy with it. It is pretty heavy and definitely not a fine carving tool, but I can live with that. It slashes through finger-thickness hazel easily and does indeed do a great job of batoning. I can't really be sure about feather sticks because I haven't had much chance to practice with another blade, but it did okay. Edge retention seems really good, I used this quite a bit without sharpening.
Things I would do better/ differently next time:
- I probably could've reduced the blade size, or the stock thickness, or both, and had a slightly more versatile knife. But sometimes you've just got to scratch that itch first.
- I doubt I'd use leather as a liner material again. It was a faff and if I'd have had some brown G10 to hand I would've used that in a flash.
- I'd have liked to use stabilised wood, and a more interesting piece at that, but I was trying to do this with minimal expense.
- I used unpeened 8mm pins to hold the scales, but corby bolts would've been better and I may regret this in time. Again, I took the cheaper option.
- I used brass pins and a copper lanyard tube because I already had the copper and I thought they looked the same (I'm colourblind). Apparently everyone else can see the difference, but I've been told it looks okay!
Having tested the knife a bit (hence the dirt), I'm really happy with it. It is pretty heavy and definitely not a fine carving tool, but I can live with that. It slashes through finger-thickness hazel easily and does indeed do a great job of batoning. I can't really be sure about feather sticks because I haven't had much chance to practice with another blade, but it did okay. Edge retention seems really good, I used this quite a bit without sharpening.
Things I would do better/ differently next time:
- I probably could've reduced the blade size, or the stock thickness, or both, and had a slightly more versatile knife. But sometimes you've just got to scratch that itch first.
- I doubt I'd use leather as a liner material again. It was a faff and if I'd have had some brown G10 to hand I would've used that in a flash.
- I'd have liked to use stabilised wood, and a more interesting piece at that, but I was trying to do this with minimal expense.
- I used unpeened 8mm pins to hold the scales, but corby bolts would've been better and I may regret this in time. Again, I took the cheaper option.
- I used brass pins and a copper lanyard tube because I already had the copper and I thought they looked the same (I'm colourblind). Apparently everyone else can see the difference, but I've been told it looks okay!
, keep it up, I'm looking forward to seeing more of them!
