A 10 Year Project: My Personal Bushcraft Knife

[jbrown14]

Well, here goes:

Years back, I was working a part-time job in a factory, packing nails and screws from big boxes into little boxes. One day when trying to clear a clog of screws in one of the machines, a small bar of flat, steel stock fell out. It wasn't from the machine, so it must have come from Taiwan where the screws originated. So I put it with my lunch, and took it home. At that point in my life, I was living with my parents still, had almost no tools, and was just on the verge of marriage and my own home. Suffice to say, any attempts at crafting a blade fell far short of the vision I had for that piece of unknown steel.

Well, in the intervening years, God has been good to me. I now have a lovely wife, twins (boy and girl, aged 3) and fairly well-equipped shop too! So, long story longer...

While working at said nail and screw packing house, I encountered a strangely dense and lovely piece of wood on a pallet of screws again from Taiwan. So I grabbed a saw, chopped a hunk off, and have hung onto an 18 in x 3 in piece of that wood ever since.

Fast forward to recent days. The blade has sat, partially finished in a drawer in my shop for almost 10 years. In the last couple of weeks, I've made a determination to finally put this project to rest.

These are the results so far.

1688168916901691

Blade is about 4 1/2 inches long (sorry, I don't do metric. Stubborn Yanks holding on to English measurements.) Overall length is about 9 inches. I think the handle material is Indonesian Rosewood, but I can't be 100% sure. Featured is my first attempt at a mosaic pin, and filework on the back of the blade in the next post.

Enjoy!

All the best,

Josh

[jbrown14]

As promised, here are the pictures of the mosaic pin and filework.

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Next project, the sheath...

[CanadianMike]

I like, congrats!!!!! Very unique handle and blade shape, be proud, that is very cool!

[Metal mug]

Blade is about 4 1/2 inches long (sorry, I don't do metric. Stubborn Yanks holding on to English measurements.) Hooray for inches! :happy-clapping:

[ElementOwl]

It may have taken a while but it is a fine knife, with a good sheath it looks like it should last you many years.

[jbrown14]

Thanks guys. I wanted a little flare at the end (not flair :o) to give me something to grip when pulling it out of the sheath. The rest of the shape was just form following function. It was carved to fit my hand, and does very well.

Sheath I plan to build is woodlore style probably with a firesteel loop on the side or bottom, and wet-molded to the handle shape. It may be a couple of weeks before I get to that, but in the meantime, I can sharpen this one and do a vinegar patina on it.

Metal Mug, inches, feet, yards, miles; that's how real measurements are taken! :D (My car gets 60 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!)

[Martin]

Hey Josh, lovely knife and lovely story too. Thanks for sharing. :)

Martin

[OKBushcraft]

Very nice looking handiwork. Keep us posted as you do the rest of your work on the knife and sheath.

You made the mosaic pin? How, I have been thinking about that myself but wasn't sure about how to glue it all together. Thanks for showing your great work, John.

[jbrown14]

Very nice looking handiwork. Keep us posted as you do the rest of your work on the knife and sheath.

You made the mosaic pin? How, I have been thinking about that myself but wasn't sure about how to glue it all together. Thanks for showing your great work, John.

Thanks for all the kind words, everyone. I'm "well chuffed" as you lads say on that side of the pond. :D

The assembly of the mosaic pin was something of my own inventing. The sleeve is just a 1/4" brass tube, same one I used for the lanyard hole, purchased years back at the local hardware store. The center brass pin is a 1/16" brass rod purchased at the same hardware store, probably at a different time. I had some aluminum pins left from some pop rivets that I wanted to try out, because I like the bright silver color of brushed aluminum, but I couldn't get them to fit. Then my eye hit on a piece of solid copper romex house wiring that I had sitting on my bench (the bare ground wire.) I snipped a few lengths, straightened them well enough by rolling them under a piece of plywood on my benchtop, and voila; 5 copper pins plus one brass pin equals one dainty flower.

Looked cute enough, now where was that blackish-gray epoxy I had? Dang-it-all, I couldn't find it anywhere.

So, my eye once again cast about the shop looking for some substitute that would make the grade. Lo and behold, I found myself picking up a tube of soldering flux, some 95/5 solder, and a propane torch. Basically, I clamped the long ends of the copper in a small vise that I sat on a corner of the bench, dripped a little liquid flux in tube, heated it up, and flowed the solder till it came out the bottom. After cutting it off flush, I realized that the solder hadn't quite filled all the voids, so I re-heated, re-fluxed and poured in the solder till it formed a nice little ball at the bottom. It still wasn't filled perfectly, as I found out later, but for my first go-around, it's good enough for government work.

Thanks again, everyone!

Josh

[feebullet]

nice rig, self made is always personally satisfying. Everytime you pick it up and use it your adding to the story of that blade. Love it mate, hope to hear more about it over the years!

[fish]

great looking blade mate,well done.

[Adam Savage]

Awesome piece buddy. Not 100% sure but the woodword looks a lot like Sapele. Used to have lumbs of that stuff kicking around our local saw mills when I worked there. Really nice job with all of it.

[andy202wr]

Nice piece, the wood work looks realy nice with the rings and pins. Worth waitng for. It's also nice to see a blade with a patern on it all mine are smooth and flat.