shop knife

[Ron Petley]

Hi All.
A while back I had forged a pair of small shop knives, I thought I would put up a photo. I made them by hand, as I do not have any power knife making tools, so I thought it would qualify for this forum.
They are both quite small and are forged out of a 1/4 inch 01 rod. The handles are made out of old maple flooring with a lignum vita guard.
Now that I have them I use them a lot around the shop, as long as I put them back that is, since they are small they get lost if I put one down. The blade of the top one is about a inch, and the bottom one is about inch and a half.
Cheers Ron.

[Michael Pilla]

They're beautiful Ron. Did you shape the blades with files?

I have something similar on my to-do list but sadly it's somewhere down near the bottom

Michael

[Ron Petley]

Michale:
Yes, I hammer them as close as I can to final shape and then file out any errors. Most of that is shaping the tang up to the guard. After that some sandpaper to remove the file marks. I sharpen the edge with stones.
You can still see hammer marks on the small one, and quench marks on the bigger one.
Thanks for the intrest.
Cheers Ron.

[Michael Justice]

I've been thinking of this myself - you can by the steel blanks from ebay.

Did you epoxy the handle on? I've seen knives made with brass barrell rivets that are glued together, but the smooth handle is much nicer and probably easier than messing with drilling/aligning the handle/blank holes.

My local (Raleigh NC) Woodcraft store used to have a class on making a marking knife, but by the time I signed up for it they had expanded it into a two day class on folding knives. I'm more interested in exactly what you made, shop knives.

Mike

[Ron Petley]

Mike:
I used a 01 steel rod, sometimes it is called drill rod. I epoxied the tang into the handle, I figured it was small enough it would not get puled out in normal use. I did make a few notches in the tang so the eopxy could "lock" it into the wood. The longer one is quite thin and is good for fine cutting/carving. The smaller one is thicker and better as a marking knife even though it is not the typical marking knife shape.
I have come across some sites that just sell the knife blank and you can put it into your own handle to make it your own, I think about $12 for one if I rember right.
Cheers Ron.

[Ken Werner]

Very nice work Ron. Functional and good looking too. Work you can be proud of.
Ken

[Ron Petley]

Ken:
Thanks for the kind words.
Ron.