Bill Menees's Blog

Knife #7 is finished. I started it on Monday and finished it today (Friday). So it's my fastest project, and I think it's my best home project so far.

It's my first steel knife with filework, and that turned out ok. Unfortunately, when I epoxied the handles on, the file work filled unevenly. So some of the notches have epoxy in them, and some don't. That's a little ugly, but it's a practice knife after all. I made this with Home Depot steel, and I didn't bother heat treating it. I just cut the long scrap off the end of the steel bar shown in the Knife #6 pics, and I started shaping it to look like a knife.

The handle and sheath are made from walnut lumber scraps that my dad got from a friend. It's a relatively easy wood to work with, and it looks nice. It's a lot easier to work with than oak or cocobolo.

The thong hole would look better with brass tubing in it, but I don't have any. I need to get some. Overall the knife would look better if I had some finer grit sanding belts. I need to get those too. The blade is a simple flat grind since that's all I can do with my belt sander.

I put the belt loop on the back of the sheath as high up as I could because the knife is so top-heavy. It still tips over though unless you put it on a stiff, wide belt.

Material: Random stainless steel with walnut handles and 1/8" brass pins. Walnut sheath.
Blade Length: 4 1/2"
Overall Length: 10 3/4"
Started: December 18, 2006
Finished: December 22, 2006

Labels: Knifemaking