Getting Started

I grew up using knives for hunting, fishing, and everything else, but somewhere around 2002 I decided I wanted to try and make one of my own. I had absolutely no intention of getting into it as a hobby, I just wanted to make a knife. So, after talking with a local knife-maker in my parent’s town, I took a very old (pre WWII?) file and headed into the machine shop at school. The knife on the far left in the picture above is what resulted. If you look closely you can still see the diagonal stripes from the file pattern on the rather diminutive handle. Believe it or not, I actually carried this knife for daily use for a while. I used the remainder of the same file to make the middle knife above. I still to this day have no idea what possessed me to put a brass handle on a knife. After this I decided to try using better steel, so I ordered a piece of ATS-34 and kept going. Number 3 is missing from the picture above because I gave it away to my sister. Number 4 (far right) has a walnut handle and has turned out to be a fantastic skinning knife that I still use heavily.