had some time tonight and couldn't think of anything better to do, so i poked around in the basement workshop and came up with this little project.
i took a 6" reciprocating saw blade (for metal, course teeth) that i wore the teeth out on near the base of the blade. after buying a few blades, i figured out that i don't need that extra length. i could really get away with 3" blades (its a pretty new saw).
i ground off the teeth and some of the back side (this is one of those bimetal blades, just by the way) in order to make a stick tang for a wood handle. ground a bevel on with the bench grinder (can't wait to get my belt sander worked out) and sharpened on a course stone.
after a failed attempt at a wood handle, i cut a strip off of a t-shirt from my rag box and did a quick cordwrap to finish sharpening it and to test it out. brought the edge to 1200 grit and then stropped. edge could have used some work, it wasn't super sharp, but it was serviceable. at this point i was beginning to run out of steam...
used it to make some shavings from a pine stick, and cut a notch. the knife wasn't that comfy in the hand, but it worked.
then i used the saw to cut a notch in the end of the stick to haft an arrow tip for an emergency arrow situation (tip secured with an inner wire from a monitor-computer cable):
its rather small in the hand, and the thinness of the stock led to some flexing while using, which made it a little trickier to use:
so in the end it worked, but obviously its not the best choice. for the space it would take up, i would say its worth tossing in the bottom of a survival tin type kit. you could wrap it with a strip of t-shirt or a shoelace if you ever needed to use it.
i took a 6" reciprocating saw blade (for metal, course teeth) that i wore the teeth out on near the base of the blade. after buying a few blades, i figured out that i don't need that extra length. i could really get away with 3" blades (its a pretty new saw).
i ground off the teeth and some of the back side (this is one of those bimetal blades, just by the way) in order to make a stick tang for a wood handle. ground a bevel on with the bench grinder (can't wait to get my belt sander worked out) and sharpened on a course stone.
after a failed attempt at a wood handle, i cut a strip off of a t-shirt from my rag box and did a quick cordwrap to finish sharpening it and to test it out. brought the edge to 1200 grit and then stropped. edge could have used some work, it wasn't super sharp, but it was serviceable. at this point i was beginning to run out of steam...
used it to make some shavings from a pine stick, and cut a notch. the knife wasn't that comfy in the hand, but it worked.
then i used the saw to cut a notch in the end of the stick to haft an arrow tip for an emergency arrow situation (tip secured with an inner wire from a monitor-computer cable):
its rather small in the hand, and the thinness of the stock led to some flexing while using, which made it a little trickier to use:
so in the end it worked, but obviously its not the best choice. for the space it would take up, i would say its worth tossing in the bottom of a survival tin type kit. you could wrap it with a strip of t-shirt or a shoelace if you ever needed to use it.
