Large skinner knife.

I like my large sweeping drop pointed knives for butchering and skinning. Longer knifes work good in the kitchen but they feel like a hindrance and just a chance to poke your own fingers or hands for cleaning and breaking down an animal to me. So, last November, I took a while to get to this, I am off for hunting and burning vacation time. I am thinking about going hunting and my buddy Kevin, as it is nice cool afternoon without being too cold, says “I am going to forge”. I skipped hunting as swinging a hammer and drinking beer sounded fairly appealing.

Kevin found a piece of broken farriers rasp about 5″ long and said “You want to try this?” I said something along the lines of “Hells yeah!”. Then he fired up his propane forge and I got started.

So above, I am most of the way through and remembered I need pictures. I had already stretched the blade and thinned the handle. I bend the handle to have a downward bend as i think that feels comfortable in the hand to me.

This is the first time I’ve tried any blacksmithing. If I spent more time on the forge and swinging the hammer I am sure I could get it closer to shape. The rest of the work was in the sanding. Below it had been sanded, hardened and had the edge sanded again.

The rasp side of the file

The finer side of the file

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Above the blade was tempered in the garage powder coating toaster oven. Run about 400° for 2 hours and allowed to natural slowly cool down.

Above the blade was polished with progressively smaller sand paper.

Then I got started getting the parts and pieces ready to add the handle, or scales.

The cherry burl was fitted and here is being clamped and epoxied into place.

Above shows the handle from rough to finished. I use the belt sander for most of it. The final sanding is done on the side with normal sand paper and the rounded sections I use a strip of plumbing sand papers to get that nice smooth round feeling.

Then five or more coats of tung oil. I love tung oil ever since I started using it on bows. . You can add as many coats as you want and a nick or two and two coats makes it looks like it was never there.

The sheath being planned out.

The leather cut out.

The welt glued in ready for stitching.

Above on the bottom is the finished knife. The top one I previously made from a purchased blank someone else made from stock. The top one is my current back pack hunting knife and the new bottom one is my at home breaking down the deer knife. I like the smaller one for field work and the larger one for muscle separations and skinning.

I have not done any more smithing, but would like too as my schedule allows.

Enjoy!

Link to the video for the sheath being made on Rumble.