re-purpose an old knife

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wildthing

Joined
Sep 26, 2004
Messages
2
Hey all,

I can not afford to go out and buy whittling/wood carving knives right now. I read some time back out on the web where this man who had 11 children as I do, made his own wood carving whittling knives with common tools and found or cheaply bought paring or broken knives or scissors. I have been searching today and cannot find the article for the life of me, there was a companion article about putting new handles on your old worn out kitchen or pocket knives along with it. Does any one here know of this article/s or direct me in how to do this?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you Ladies and gentlemen.


Respectfully


Mark
 
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If you have any specific questions about re-handling knives, I'd be glad to share some of the things I've learned.
 
Phillip Dobson said:
If you have any specific questions about re-handling knives, I'd be glad to share some of the things I've learned.
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Thanks for the reply. I am going to try to locate some old paring knives and take the two broken steak knives and try to make something serviceable out of them, though the steak knives are serrated blades, as of right now I do not have any paring knives as I have yet to check the thrift stores and there are very few if any flea markets this time of year around here. I am going to try, as I have posted, to make something to whittle/carve with. I have some Ginsu knives that I hate,and they too are serrated and very flimsy and thin though sharp, do not appear up to the task. and their handles are molded onto them. The steak knives that I was talking about are wooden handled with three rivets.


Mark
 
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I go to Goodwill, Salvation Army or ARC thrift stores and look for old kitchen knives. For things like wood carving old paring knives can be modified if you have some basic tools. I look for major US, German, or Swiss brand knives. Alternately most knives from Japan are pretty good. Shorter blades are usually better than long blades. I like squared-off blade tips for utility tasks. Sometimes you find paring knives with the spine of the blade rounded forward and the sharp edge of the blade straight. Sometimes you even find short paring knives with a bit of curve and sort of a forward tilted tip. These types I would use unaltered. There are some really short and narrow paring knives (such as from Chicago Cutlery) that have narrow tips that are also very convenient as-is. If I didn't find these I might cut the end off some more common paring knife blades to give me shapes I want. I might cut the blade off at a right angle to leave a shorter square-ended blade. I might cut the end off diagonally to leave the edge straight and an angled back--for point work.

For a hard blade you can often simply score the side with the edge of a file, clamp the point in a vise and break it off. I have a Dremel tool and use an abrasive disk to cut the blade. I use a belt sander to smooth off the cut. You can use a file on softer blades or Wet or Dry sandpaper for harder blades if you don't.
 
Here are some samples of paring blade shapes that are useful. If I was cutting-down other paring knives to achieve these types of shapes I would reduce the blade length to under 2 inches.
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The steak knives that I was talking about are wooden handled with three rivets.
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You're looking for "Old Hickory" knives. I spent a lot of time looking and found exactly one. Like you, I am repurposing it. Mine's been abused so I don't feel guilty about ruining a good knife.
 
If you have a "Do It Best" Hardware store near you they carry Old Hickory knives. I got some awesome re-purpose knives for under 8 bucks!

Old-Hickory-5-Piece.jpg
 
You might place a post in your local Craigslist.com region for Old wornout kitchen knives. You might even mention that you would like them for free. :)

I picked up an old clever and made a Koster style Messmuk blade.
 
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