First commisioned knives

V

Von Gruff

Joined
Nov 24, 2014
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115
While I have been making knives for myself and a couple of friends over the last 35 years or so, this is the first of the commisioned knives. I was talking to one of the local pig hunters and we got onto knives for the job as the hunters here in NZ mostly hunt with finder/bailer dogs where the dogs will find a pig and bail it up till the hunter gets there (often out of breath from running to the sound of the dogs and pig). He will grab the pig by the back leg and flip it over onto its back then using a sticking knife will make the kill.

This is the design I came up with,



I made up a dummy knife with mild steel so he could get a feel of it in hand and left it with him for a few days and the upshot is that I have four to make. I got in some 2 x.2 O1 (50 x 5mm) and got them cut out, gound to shape and the handle slabs (plain beech) cut to shape.





This is how they hunt pigs and what the knife has to do



https://www.youtube....h?v=iuu0JQppakQ





At the same time a guy wanted one of my light hunters so cut one out from some 1 1/2 x .125 1084 (40x 3.175) and got it ground to shape with the main bevels ground in. It will have jarah bolsters and walnut handle slabs.

 
Been a busy couple of days with a Lee Speed stock inletted and a companion knife got ready for heat treating so that when I do the 4 pigstickers and the light hunter I can do it as well. It has ebony bolsters and walnut (from the stock blank) to match the rifle stock while the light hunter has curved jarah bolsters and walnut handles with the pigstickers having plain beech handles. All the blades have been hand sanded to 360 grit

 
I set up for heat treating this morning so another facet ticked off the list



And the tempering done



So the next step is to hand sand them to 600 grit before the handles go on. I had a bit of trouble getting the fire up to heat and had to keep at it with the bellows so I am going to build an air forced forge before the next lot gets done. Lynette will be pleased to not have this happen in the kitchen as well so another little projects for me and a happy wife, win win.
 
Been a long day hand sanding but got them all to 600grit and the handles on the pig stickers with the bolsters on the compannion knife and the light hunter. while I was at it I decided to do something about having to constantly take the spanner that hangs by the vise for the swivel nuts and go to the knife vise which uses the other end of the spanner so cut it in half and set each of them into a bit of walnut which I will shape up into handle for them tomorrow.

 
Today saw the second part of the handles on the companion knife and the light hunter, the two spanner handles bought to a semblance of shape that will sufice for the workshop and the rifle stock shaped but it still has a bit of refining to be done.

 
Another day of shaping and sanding but have all the knives shaped now so that will be it till next week. A friend is joining me and we are off to the high country for a couple of days hunting.


Todays sanding effort.


The companion for the rifle


With the first coat of oil to keep them till I can get back to them next week. I decided to use my fathers old tool mark as my makers mark so the 3 dot trialgle will go on all my blades from now on.

 
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