Post your improvised knife ideas and pics

[shipwreck]

Wow just inspiring! really good stuff, from such simple means, thanks to everybody posting!

 

[tholiver]

When i was in highschool I made a very crude knife out of a metal shelf bracket.
I stripped off the paint and ground it to a blade shape with files and sandpaper.
It was pretty low grade metal but it would cut ok.
you can just look around your house and see all the potential items that can be modded to function as tools.
Theres so much stuff we throw away that can be reused/recycled into something else.
You can make flint style tools out of glass, you can even use an old toilet cover!

Kinda off-topic but here are some non-knife things you can reuse-
You can make soap using the leftover frying pan grease that most people throw out.
Old plastic margarine and ice cream tubs can be a great source for those spacers you put between frozen hamburger patties. All you need is 5 minutes and a good pair of scissors and voila you have spacers! They actually work better than some of the store bought spacers.

 

[tholiver]

Here in Newfoundland there was almost no trade between Euros and Native peoples.
But Native people did manage to liberate and use European materials left behind.
The fishery here was mostly a migratory fishery for the first few hundred years of its existence.
Starting in the end of the last decade of the 15th century English/French/Portuguese/Spanish fishing ships came here by the thousands every year to fish the Grand Banks for Cod.
The English would set up fish flakes and processing structures onshore and they would be abandoned at the end of the fishing season when they went back to Europe.
Then the Native Beothuk peoples would move in and "liberate" materials from these structures.
Usually they would burn the structures down because that was the easiest way to separate the metal nails from all the stuff they didn't want.
They would pick the nail outs of the coals and then use them for all sorts of things from arrowheads to awls to fish-hooks.
On post-contact Beothuk archaeological sites iron nails are one of the most common artifact found!

 

[Don Rearic]

Unless they take away my bench grinder, my angle grinder, my files, my hammer, my anvil, the train tracks down the road, or anything on the planet harder than steel that could be used to grind, and any conceivable access I could have to even bar stock, vehicle springs, old tools, etc, I would just go make more.

There is absolutely no way to take away the ability of people to make decent knives. I wouldn't be bothering with prison shanks, I'd be heating up some spring steel in a pile of coals on the hibachi and making a brand new knife.

Yeah, too bad you're not a politician! As the old saying goes, "Common sense isn't very common anymore."

The same holds true for other forbidden fruit - like lock tools and even firearms. I have a picture somewhere of a copy of a Smith & Wesson revolver made in the Phillipines, right? You know what it fires? 5 or 6 .223 Rem. (5.56X45mm), imagine that. If they can make a revolver in a small workshop that can withstand the chamber pressure of 5.56mm, you can make just about any gun you need to. This is in a shop that would be a rather primitive machine shop by today's standards and the pistols were made in the 1980s.

Then there was another little flat box derringer type of pistol called a King Cobra and that was from Thailand or the Phillipines. Two-shot .22 Magnum and a little bit smaller than a pack of cigarettes and only about a 1/4 to 1/2 inch thickness, hard to tell from the picture.

All of that having been said, I can visualize a time in this country with all of the liberal rhetoric that we should be "more like Britain" when it comes to firearms laws that we, too, ban the street carry of fixed blade knives or locking folders and seriously contemplate banning other folders and even some kitchen knives.

Britain has flirted with the idea of banning some kitchen knives. A couple of years ago Police Agencies along with trauma surgeons and chefs got together to inform the public that they didn't need long kitchen knives and they didn't need kitchen knives with points on them. So, yeah, I can see that madness taking hold here, we might all be in assisted living facilities by then, but it could very well happen.

 

[misanthropist]

I have to say that if I were in politics this country would be a pretty different place...mainly because if it weren't a pretty different place, there's no way I could stand to be in politics!

When my dad was a kid he used to build simple handguns for fun. They weren't very accurate, but he lived in a mining camp and there were always plenty of scraps and tools around, so he cobbled them together just for fun.

He was about nine at the time.

If a nine-year-old in a bush camp can build guns, I would guess even the most deprived ghetto dweller could think of something!

On the plus side, the 2nd Amendment has hopefully done its job and created a populace which would be very difficult to take property from by force - not that it helps me any, as a Canadian!

 

[baldtaco-II]

 

[Don Rearic]

In the book "Fear in a Handful of Dust" the characters are intentionally stranded in the Mojave desert to die.
They have no tools or supplies but the main character uses spent brass shell casings and fashions them into a cutting tool.

The book was by Brian Garfield writer of "Deathwish".
It was published under the name "John Ives".
Heres a plot synopsis of the book-
http://www.foxall.com.au/users/mje/Fear.htm

Dieter Dengler also made these for his fellow prisoners, small knives out of empty shell casings...you know, in his off time after finishing up a handcuff shim made out of a nail.

 

[tholiver]

Yeah, too bad you're not a politician! As the old saying goes, "Common sense isn't very common anymore."

The same holds true for other forbidden fruit - like lock tools and even firearms. I have a picture somewhere of a copy of a Smith & Wesson revolver made in the Phillipines, right? You know what it fires? 5 or 6 .223 Rem. (5.56X45mm), imagine that. If they can make a revolver in a small workshop that can withstand the chamber pressure of 5.56mm, you can make just about any gun you need to. This is in a shop that would be a rather primitive machine shop by today's standards and the pistols were made in the 1980s.

Then there was another little flat box derringer type of pistol called a King Cobra and that was from Thailand or the Phillipines. Two-shot .22 Magnum and a little bit smaller than a pack of cigarettes and only about a 1/4 to 1/2 inch thickness, hard to tell from the picture.

I've got an old issue of "Guns" magazine from the late 70's or early 80's with an article on a town in Pakistan that was a gun town.
I think the name of the town was Darra but i might be wrong.
Basically most of the town was made up of little one or two room low tech machine shops.
Everything from H&K G3's to shotguns to Broomhandle Mauser pistols.
All made to order and made by hand!
pretty impressive!

 

[felixXJ]

What's a good source for Power Hacksaw Blades? I like to make a few knives out of them.

 

[Myal]

I get them used from engineering shops

otherwise you need a shop that supplies mining and engineering construction industry

I buy new at times , when they arent breaking enough

the smaller blades make small knives but have a tad too much flex for a long blade , the big blades ( yard long jobs ) make good big blades , tho even then they are only 1/8 thick or thereabout

stay a long way away from bi-metal blades , only use all hard HSS blades .

I think of it as poor mans infini

Go find your welding supply shop and ask , if they dont have , they will more than likely point you in the right direction ..

be aware tho that if you buy new , you will be paying $70-$90 for a big blade , but you get enough steel to make 3 - 4 serious sized knives out of it

I generaly give a knife as a "thanks mate" when I get a bunch of broken blades , its incentive for them to keep their blades for me next time

 

[misanthropist]

Made the handle too short so it's ugly but it sure works well!

 

[Myal]

That is sweet

 

[misanthropist]

Thanks...somehow screwed up when I measured the tang (???) so I went ahead and made a handle, got it all ready, put epoxy on it, and then put the tang in and discovered I'd made it too short!

Still, works fine!