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My First Knife

I've thought about making a knife for a while and thought I'd be restricted to a fixed blade since folding blades seemed difficult to perfect. I saw the Svord Peasant knife somewhere online somewhere and I hope they take it as flattery that I wanted to copy their design. They, in turn, based their design on medieval knifes. I also saw online a knife making tutorial that used an old circular saw blade (I've seen it mentioned on this site too a couple of times). So I headed for the shed and a few hours later came out with this: Obviously the bolts in the handle are ugly and the blade hasn't been hardened anymore than it was already but it does function pretty well. The grip on the back of the blade I put in with a triangular file. The handle is cherry with linseed oil. The lanyard hole sticks up a bit but if I filed it off it'd poke a hole in my pocket (and it works well getting paint cans open).

16 comments

Dec 28, 2010. 3:24 PM

Biggsy says:

You know this is beautiful! I would love a knife like that, welldone... Now if only this was a Full I'ble showing us how you made it! hehe

you know this is something I would love to take with me camping, simple and elegant.... do you make Knives to order?

High five for you!

Biggsy

Feb 29, 2012. 12:34 AMcurious youth says:

+1 to that its great and i would love to see the steps to make it :)

Dec 29, 2010. 7:22 AM

markbyounger (author) says:

Thanks, I did some more work on this knife last weekend actually. I wasn't happy with the hardness of the blade so I had a go. I'm still testing the blade but it seems much harder. I also made my second knife, this time a fixed blade kitchen knife: http://goo.gl/Kq6wf
No, I'm not selling anything yet.

Jan 15, 2012. 6:10 AM

HTWTUSA says:

Extremely nice knife...kudos.

Jan 13, 2012. 8:44 AMjadronx says:

Love the color of a few coats of linseed oil on bare wood, I do all my walking sticks that way.

Nov 20, 2011. 10:24 PMbobthebuilder728 says:

what did you make the blade out of

Nov 21, 2011. 7:23 AM

markbyounger (author) says:

It's an old circular saw blade

Nov 21, 2011. 11:52 AMbobthebuilder728 says:

those make some good blades nice job

Nov 20, 2011. 2:34 PMbobthebuilder728 says:

i want to make one of these, nice job!

Oct 16, 2010. 7:09 PMATOMIKMONKEY says:

This is incredible. When I make my first knife I can only dream that it will look this nice. The handle is so smooth looking. This is pure awesomeness

Oct 9, 2010. 6:02 AMflamesami says:

woooooooooohhhh!!!!!!!!!
If my first knife had looked like that...which reminds me that I still need to heat treat it....
mlcorson is right, you should get the 50$ knife shop, it's got tons of good advice...you might want to visit some online forums too, and m4040.com has some interesting stuff on knives....
if your not enjoing yourself, then stop, come back to it later.
one last bit - don't, watever you do, make a crappy "survival" knife, just don't give in to temptation

Oct 8, 2010. 5:49 AMIsurvival says:

Nice work!

Oct 7, 2010. 7:56 PM

berky93 says:

That looks really good. I think the bolts actually look nice - gives it a hand crafted look, and makes it look more "classic." The standard flat rivets are too modern looking, and the medieval design is what is so neat about the knife. (Yes I know they didnt use screws like that in medieval times, but it still looks better than clean flat rivets)

I wish I had access to woodworking tools, I'd love to make something like this.

Oct 7, 2010. 12:05 PMmdog93 says:

could you add a picture/ diagram of the profile of the knife (side-on) so we can see the handle->blade->handle construction.

I would like to see how the handle is spaced apart etc

Oct 7, 2010. 1:12 PM

markbyounger (author) says:

Sorry this is just a crappy cell-phone photo but it might show you what you want to see. This is the spine of the handle and the blade is closed in this photo.

Oct 7, 2010. 11:59 AMmlcorson says:

Nice job!
You should get a copy of the book:
"$50 Knife Shop" by Wayne Goddard
Shows you ways to make knives and equip your entire workshop for less than $50. You've made a nice start. Practice is the only thing that creates mastery.