Bushcraft knife coming together

After many hours grinding, filing, gluing, sanding, more sanding and honing, my bushcraft knife is finally coming together.

I did a lot of the heavier work in my dad's excellent workshop over the Christmas break (thanks dad!), I made the sheath out of a slab of hide last weekend and have been trying to polish out the file marks and hone the knife ever since, an hour a night.

The wet formed sheath, waiting for a firesteel

Last night was a bit of a breakthrough as I finally managed to get the blade to shave the hairs off my arm, so a good stropping  and final polish should see it pretty much finished.

Getting sharper, but still needs a polish

 

The kit (a roughly ground and tempered steel blank, slab of hide, two slabs of hardwood, liners, a couple of cutler's bolts and an inch of brass tube) came from Ebay, but originally from a chap called Bernie Garland. There were not instructions, but with Pablo's help, I managed to fine some excellent tutorials.

My knife may not be a thing of beauty, like some of the artworks you can find if you Google 'bushcraft knife', but with a typical Ray Mears type Woodlore knife going from anywhere between £100 and £800, I don't really care. Its a great tool for our woodland camping trips, with a 4mm blade that can be used for almost anything. Apparently, you can dig in into a tree trunk and stand on it!

If you are good with your hands, its a really satisfying little project to make your own knife.

Lovely dark hardwood scales (handles), nor sure what wood it is though.

The kit came with white liners to apparently protect the wood from water ingress.