Making a boning knife

Diego_B

Diego_B

Joined
Aug 17, 2020
Messages
260
Hey guys, I’m back hopefully to gain some ideas and knowledge. So I’ve been asked to make a “professional boning knife” for a friend and I’m both excited and concerned about it but the link is here to what he wants.
https://justemporium.com/product/ul...MItdavtLOC7AIVxsDACh2EOAaCEAQYAiABEgK95fD_BwE
I’ve never made anything really similar to this so I’m diving into the unknown a little bit. Anyhow I wanted to see if any one here has ever made one of these and I just want some advice on it. I’ll be forging it from most likely 1084 I’m not too comfortable with any other steels yet except for 5160. So some general questions I had were what’s the grind on this type of knife I’m limited to only flat as I don’t have a contact wheel so is a flat grind sufficient? Also what spine thickness would you guys recommend? I’m assuming no more than 1/8in since it’s used for cutlery. Also how do they go about creating the forge stamp like pattern on the blade? I’ll be forging it so I’ll probably just leave the surface unfinished with some hammer marks, but it’s just a curious question.
 
.10 at the thickest ... and that will still be thick. I would use .060" or .080".
6" blade.
26C3 is a very good steel for a boning knife, but 1080 will also work. If I were you I would use 26C3 and send it to JT for a proper HT. Have the temper done at Rc64.
 
My uncle who worked at a meat packing plant wants one with the very angled back blade that is used blade down. Are there different designs for blade up and blade down? I need to make one for deer season soon as well.
 
I second on that not looking like a boning knife. At the risk of disagreeing with Stacy, (at least the way I use such a knife) you need a thicker spine to withstand twisting motions (especially when getting in to joints) And a narrower blade both for getting in to joints and to maneuver into tight spaces between bones and between specific tissues. A boning knife is most definitely not used like a slicer
 
Yeah. The only concern I would have with many companies marketing a “boning knife” is that many of them are thin and flexible. All I can say is that when I am separating meat from bone, or prying open and cutting cartilage in a joint, the LAST thing I want is flexible.. thin Blade and stiff spine (ie thicker stock), and not all that delicate an edge (it is after all explicitly coming up against bone...)
 
Yeah I see where you guys are coming from that the knife I’ve showed is not exactly a boning knife. But I think the intended purpose for it is that he has for it is more for field dressing deer and such, not exactly sure. Anyhow that’s what he wants and thats what I’ll build but anyhow I just wanted to know what details that make up this knife in your opinion. Such as the grind and edge geometry.
 
Screenshot_11-1.jpg

Boning is just a keyword. That knife is the last thing I want.

they sort of took a chef shaped and made it look outdoorsy

For bambi work, I'd look at the classic loveless four inch drop point hunter

This one has high blade height, makes tight work impossible.
This one has blade hole, that's a finger breaker
This one has all those dimples, they hold blood and guts and goo; Loveless did high polish to make it more stain resistant and easier to clean.

Let him buy the one in the link, show him a real boner too.
 
I worked in a butcher shop for many years. That is not a boning knife. The butchers work with several different knives while butchering and never would use a boning knife for "twisting".

They are for taking meat off the bone and need to be thin and flexible. It is a very specific knife for the task.
 
12345678910 said:
Screenshot_11-1.jpg

Boning is just a keyword. That knife is the last thing I want.

they sort of took a chef shaped and made it look outdoorsy

For bambi work, I'd look at the classic loveless four inch drop point hunter

This one has high blade height, makes tight work impossible.
This one has blade hole, that's a finger breaker
This one has all those dimples, they hold blood and guts and goo; Loveless did high polish to make it more stain resistant and easier to clean.

Let him buy the one in the link, show him a real boner too.
Click to expand...
Yeah I get it now that this isn’t a real boning knife but like I said I assume that he is wanting to use it for other tasks like skinning so I guess this would suffice? Let me know. Also thank you guys for pointing that out to me what a real boning knife is and obviously this isn’t a real one. Anyhow I think I will still go about making it because it’s not for me so I won’t be using it. But about the finger hole, is it really a finger breaker? I mean after all a karambit has a finger hole and that’s really what I think is a key feature of it. Also the person that wants me to make this knife also had another one he showed me a skinner that he had made that also featured a finger hole and I have to say I feel that the finger hole offered superior control over the knife and was pretty impressed at just what a hole could offer.
 
AVigil said:
I worked in a butcher shop for many years. That is not a boning knife. The butchers work with several different knives while butchering and never would use a boning knife for "twisting".

They are for taking meat off the bone and need to be thin and flexible. It is a very specific knife for the task.
Click to expand...
With your experience could you talk a bit more about the boning knives that you used and especially the one meant to be used blade down?
 
AVigil said:
I worked in a butcher shop for many years. That is not a boning knife. The butchers work with several different knives while butchering and never would use a boning knife for "twisting".

They are for taking meat off the bone and need to be thin and flexible. It is a very specific knife for the task.
Click to expand...
Adam - thank you very, very much for the input. I am a home chef, NOT a butcher ... so my comments come from the perspective of using a knife, marketed as a “boning knife” to break down a chicken, or turkey, or the occasional rib-eye. For the chickens and turkeys, you definitely need toget in there and twist the joint (a small space) apart. Your explanation of separating Meat from bones on a larger scale Also makes great sense. There is a phrase from the movie “cool hand Luke “ that goes “ what we have here is a failure to communicate “. Is there a description, and naming, of knife types That would allow us to distinguish between the type that needs to be flexible and separate long swaths of meat from bone, versus the more rigid, pointy, blades that can get into joints and cartilage and pry them apart without damage to the blade?
 
In modern butchering large bandsaws are use to break down the carcass not knives.

In my experience in the field a bone saw work better then a knife for breaking joints and bones down.
 
Adam - again I do not doubt what you say .... in my local store the butchers clearly use a bandsaw to cut down large pieces of meat (and to go through bones), and use a long curved knife to create individual steaks etc from larger hunks of meat. BUT .... how then should we call this knife:
upload_2020-9-26_11-18-56.png

It was (and still is) sold by Sabatier as a "boning knife" (for use in the kitchen - not the butchers shop). In my practice I would **never** try to use this knife to hack through a bone of any sort .... but I do, and always have, used it to probe into a poultry joint and find the tendons and cut them to separate the joint, and to remove the ribs from chicken and turkey breast meat, occasionally to go through the cartillage in the breast to separate a full breast into two individuals, and more occasionallly to debone thighs or drumsticks. Also occasionally to remove the meat from the bone in a bone-in steak or similar. so .... while clearly not a butchers "boning knife" ..... then what the heck should we call this style of knife?
 
Cushing H. said:
Adam - again I do not doubt what you say .... in my local store the butchers clearly use a bandsaw to cut down large pieces of meat (and to go through bones), and use a long curved knife to create individual steaks etc from larger hunks of meat. BUT .... how then should we call this knife:
View attachment 1426249

It was (and still is) sold by Sabatier as a "boning knife" (for use in the kitchen - not the butchers shop). In my practice I would **never** try to use this knife to hack through a bone of any sort .... but I do, and always have, used it to probe into a poultry joint and find the tendons and cut them to separate the joint, and to remove the ribs from chicken and turkey breast meat, occasionally to go through the cartillage in the breast to separate a full breast into two individuals, and more occasionallly to debone thighs or drumsticks. Also occasionally to remove the meat from the bone in a bone-in steak or similar. so .... while clearly not a butchers "boning knife" ..... then what the heck should we call this style of knife?
Click to expand...
I think "boning knife" really means "deboning knife", i.e., a knife to cut around bones, not through them.
 
Chicken and turkey are easy peasy for just about any knife.

Hell I break down a chicken with a santoku

But how you use a knife does not change the name of it. A boning knife is what it is. What you do with it is your business.
 
I made these two knives last year and was sharpening them the morning we butchered the last deer which was a large older white tail buck. The blades are 1/16" (measured as .070") thick 1084 from Aldo quenched in parks 50 and tempered at 385f. The blades measure 5" on both. The handles are just poplar with a wax finish as they were for testing only on comfort and function. The swept blade is modeled after a Victorinox fibrox and the straight blade is after a wusthof. The handles are my own design as I have found them to fit my large glove wearing hand as well as xtra large and womens hands. We found them to hold an edge about 50% longer then the victorinox fibrox knife which is the x50cr mo stainless at 56rc. The first deer we did was a similar buck and was cold meat but not froze and the victorinox knife did the whole deer all by itself with no touchups or resharpenings. The second deer that these knives got to do along with the victorinox was quite frozen and we sharpened all the knives at least 4 times. So unthawed 1 edge did a whole deer and pretty frozen but workable took 10-12 sharpenings. That is a big difference. The victorinox is slightly thicker at the beginning of the blade and if I remade these I would not use the .070" thick since I think it is just a bit too flexy and start with something around the .090" mark and distal taper it to around .060" leaving the tip not too thin as they will break off in the meat or if hitting a bone it seems. The grind could be a full flat grind to around .020" behind the edge which seemed to handle smacking some bones. I sharpened these first at 10 dps with a 15 dps microbevel and found that not to be quite enough as it rolled the edge when bumping bones so then put an 18 dps microbevel on them and it worked great. If anyone wants the actual outline from cad as shown below I could certainly post a pdf somewhere or email it. The handles worked great and were real comfortable with no hot spots. The 5" blade seemed too short a lot of the time and 6" would be ideal. I have a Fibrox in the 6" also but it is swept up much more and not comfortable to use so I will be making a few 6" ones in the same sweep as in the drawing this year. The swept blades were much more favored over the straight blade or a regular style hunting blade. Hope this helps.
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