My first, and so far only proper knife, I've made other KSOs like forging a blade out of a 3rd of the length of a chainsaw file, and bending the remaining length over itself to make a handle, and made blades/shanks but not put on a handle or heat treated them, but this is so far my only formal Knife.
The date of creation of the picture shows as 2005, but I'm sure I made it earlier than that as I made it during weekends while home at the farm from university. 2005 I was working as a salesman.
Made from an old car spring, heated in a wetback hot water heater fireplace and hammered out with builders hammer on an anvil made from mounting a sledgehammer head with a broken handle in a round of wood by drilling a series of holes and chisseling out the gaps then knocking the hammer head into place with the back of an axe until it wouldn't move.
Heat treating consisted of heating in the coals of the fire with a good draft running until the blade was glowing a good clear yellow in the shade, and plunging into a tin of old used engine oil from the tractor. Scrubbed off the burnt oil and scale with a rotary wire brush mounted on the angle grinder then tempered in the oven. Sandpaper finished the job. All forged to shape and finished with sandpaper, no filing of blanks.
Handle is firewood Kanuka with linseed oil, the pins are rivetted number 8 (8 gauge) soft iron fencing wire mushroomed out to fill into countersunk holes in the wood. The bolster, if a thin sheet can e called that, is made from a .303 british shell heated and hammered flat.
Crude, but holds an edge you can shave with and keeps that edge well, I made it sized to fit the hand of a pretty girl in the states I would chat with on Yahoo messenger all night at University while studying and typing essays. She still uses it as a woodcarving and whittling tool. All the way from New Zealand to Illinois as a handmade birthday gift to a pretty girl
Everything I used, tools and raw materials, came from somewhere around the farm...
That was around 2004...
Still haven't made another knife though I just came back to BF to dig round forge designs to think aout putting together a gas forge. Since then I moved farms and left the old fireplace I used as a forge behind. when I signed in again yesterday, the site said I last visited 2008.
You should try doing a Chris Reeves style lanyard with that, would look cool done with the boot lace.
