Making knives using materials around you

silenthunterstudios

silenthunterstudios

Slipjoint Addict
Joined
Feb 2, 2005
Messages
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I've read many threads on here about people using that super duper Excalibur grade knife, whether it be a big chopper or the do it all SAK. Two things I want to do when I camp, or spend the day outside in the woods or on the trail, is have a good time and learn something new. I almost always have a pocket knife on me. These days, it's a slipjoint, or SAK. Sometimes a couple of them on me.

Yesterday and today, my truck is in the shop, and I am dependent on others to get to work. My little Case peanut is along for the ride today, no one else. Hopefully my wheels will be ready this afternoon (getting knock sensors replaced, common problem on 03 Silverados), and I have a bag full of goodies behind the seat. Even so, most of us will hopefully not be caught without a knife. The sad fact is, it is possible.

So, we have seen and read all about improvising from nature, and any man made products, to build what we need. Plant fibers for cordage for example. What about getting a sharp edge? If you were to be dropped all alone in the middle of the backcountry/bush etc, without anything but the clothes on your back, how would you make an edged tool?

My first thought would be to strike two hard rocks together, to fashion a smaller jagged cutting tool. Making stone tools grabbed my interest after taking an anthropology course in college, and I tried all manner of local rocks. Most were too soft, and didn't do much to the old tee shirst that stood in for mastodon hides ;). I've seen flint knappers at powwows, rendevous and primitive events.

I'd like to know what you'd use in an emergency situation. Rambo 4 was an entertaining movie, but most of us are not going to have a hot forge in the middle of no where to make ourselves a knife. At least not if we are thrust into a survival situation without a knife. I know most of you would say you wouldn't be caught dead without a knife, but how would you improvise from the available tools around you? Let's make it easier and say with the tools around you in your area.
 
I've used rocks as sharpening stones when in a pinch. Been using rocks for decades to open/cut foil seals on automotive oils and chemicals. Who doesn't use a rock as a hammer when you don't happen to have one with you. You make do with what is around you. It's not survival as much as it is a way of life.
 
I've improvised knives and other cutting tools for years. If one pays attention to their environment, there are usually suitable stones around, even if it is just the midden piles from ancient hunters' camps in areas without naturally occuring suitable rocks. And many places have the odd broken bottle around or a small piece of metal. Even sticks can be fire hardened and sharpened. Bones as well as shed antlers.
 
dipbait said:
If I can find some glass, I would try my luck at flintknapping.
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Protect your hands and eyes if you do, whether using glass or stones. Popped chips and flakes can zing off at high velocity and crazy angles. I like to use a bit of leather to hold the work piece if I have it. Also, both stone and glass are easier to flake if tempered in a fire. This takes some experimenting. It helps to look at original stone tools up close to see how the old stonebreakers did it. A good pressure flaking tool is a must. Deer antler works great. I am pretty sure there are tutorials somewhere on line and maybe in print.
 
We have a lot of chert in this area. I find nodes exposed in run off water courses and broken pieces in creek beds all the time. I suppose I'd start there.
 
Or you could buy a small supply from a rock shop or online, from known superior flint deposits. Volcanic glass is great and easy to find. Even ancient stonebreakers bought raw materials from far away to make their best tools. It was an important early trade item.

As an aside, a copper penny makes a fantastic dart point or other cutting edge. It is easily worked and easily resharpened. Aluminum can work as well if one has it available and needs to improvise.
 
In 1962, the cent's tin content, which was quite small, was removed. That made the metal composition of the cent 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc.
• The alloy remained 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc until 1982, when the composition was changed to 97.5 percent zinc and 2.5 percent copper (copper-plated zinc). Cents of both compositions appeared in that year.
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I looked in my pocket and am having trouble finding a copper penny. :D
 
I save all copper pennies. Have about 50 lbs of it. 1982s , about 2/3s are still copper . The way to tell is to flip it in the air. Make sure your thumb nail strikes the coin sharply. A copper penny will sing . A zinc doesnt.
 
Depending on where you find yourself might be the key. I don't run around bare foot for fear of laying my foot open on junk left by others. What is found may not be ideal but it will get the job done; I once slit the belly of a Trout open with a clam shell. I just tuned up the edge on rock and, viola.:)
 
As Les Stroud says: No matter where he goes he's able to find Trash. If we like trash or not, trash is a great resource for making tools. PA might not be the industrial state it once was, but the Relics and Artifacts of yesterday's industrial age still remain to recycle and reuse.
 
555 said:
As Les Stroud says: No matter where he goes he's able to find Trash. If we like trash or not, trash is a great resource for making tools. PA might not be the industrial state it once was, but the Relics and Artifacts of yesterday's industrial age still remain to recycle and reuse.
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Same here. I can find enough steel just strewn along the railroad tracks to improvise a lot of things.
 
I found a 30.06 shell that had been pounded flat on the open end and then folded at a 45 degree to make a point and pounded flat again. It had been ground on a rock to a sharp edge. The cutting edge was about 3/4" long. Someone had made a cutting utensil out of spent brass. I never did find out who or why it was made.--KV
 
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