Pocket Knife

I made this little pocket knife when I was about 16 years old. It has seen a little wear and tear from use over the years. It is an all metal construction. The sides and main pivot pin are 416 stainless steel. The rest of the pins are brass. The blade was ground from an old bandsaw blade. 

Kit Knives

These are some knives that I purchased the blades already ground, heat-treated and finished. Some would call them kit knives. From time-to-time I will do this. The blades that I purchase however are not marked with my "DVW" initials.

The fillet knives have seven inch long blades of AUS-8A and are very flexible. I actually purchased them to try as boning knives. I ended up selling the first two to friends before I ever got to try one out. I have made a few more and one of them I am going to keep for myself. The top one has a canvas Micarta handle. The middle one has a wood handle. The second to the bottom one has a black paper Micarta handle and the bottom one has a Diamondwood handle.

These knifes is actually sold as a steak knife. The blade is five inches long and 1/16" thick. It is fairly stout and I thought that it would make a good boning knife. I am guessing that the steel is either 440A or AUS-6A. For the top knife I installed a black paper Micarta handle and a canvas Micarta handle on the bottom knife.

Boning Knife

In the past few years my family and I have taken up deer hunting. This has provided me the opportunity to field dress, skin and butcher about a dozen deer. This experience has proven to be very useful in making hand made hunting knives. One thing that has been interesting though, is that by far the most time spent with a knife is during the butchering process. The field dressing and skinning hardly take any time at all. It is amazing to me how much emphasis is placed on the size and shape of a hunting knife when it is really used for such a short period of time. On the same thought is how little you hear about butcher or boning knives. I'm sure that a lot of this is due to the fact that many people have someone else do the meat processing for them. I was quickly looking for a good boning knife design and even better yet would be one knife that I could use for all three processes (field dressing, skinning and butchering). I noticed that many professional butchers will have a favorite knife that they use for just about everything. This includes skinning a deer when or if needed. Below is my first attempt at making such a knife. It worked quite well, but it is not my final revision. The blade is 1/16" thick by four inches long ATS-34 and had a fair amount of flex. It was a little too stiff and short for filleting some of the silver skin off of the larger cuts of meat.  The blade shape worked quite well for skinning. The up-swept point wasn't too dramatic for gutting, but I did have to be extra careful not to puncture anything that I would regret. The handle is canvas Micarta with dovetailed brass bolsters. It provided an excellent grip in all cases. A spent .22 magnum shell dutifully serves as the thong hole tubing. Hopefully soon I will be able to show you my next two revisions of this idea.

Drop Point Skinner

This was made for a friend back when I was about 15. The blade was O1 tool steel and the handle was Diamondwood. I sold it to the father of my friend who bought the oak handle drop point. The thong hole tubing is a spent .22 Magnum shell.

Early Skinning Knife

I made this in Moses Lake for a friend. It was an early attempt at a full tang skinning knife design that I later settled on . The blade was 1/16" thick ATS-34 and the handle was Diamondwood. I was still playing around with different sheath designs at the time. I'm sure that the knife performed well (1/16" ATS-34 would slice like the dickens) but I wasn't yet happy with the way the overall knife looked.

Friend's Veggie Knife

I have a friend at work who is a picky eater. He likes certain veggies and cheese. That's about it. He prepares most of his own food and he doesn't like how his kids and wife abuse the knives. So he asked me to make a knife just for him. This was about three years ago, and last I asked, he uses it daily and has never had to sharpen it. I find this hard to believe, but the most important factor in edge holding is how you use the knife. So maybe it's true. The blade was ground from 1/8" thick CPM-S30V. The full tang handle is Cocobolo with stainless steel dovetailed bolsters and pins. I didn't want to make a sheath for a kitchen knife. That didn't seem appropriate. Instead I made a leather blade protector that was lined with thick plastic. I was pleased with it.

Donated Knives

These were donated to church for fund raising auctions. They ended up being bought by brothers. Both knives have blades of 1/8" CPM-S30V.

The top knife was from two years ago. It had brass dovetailed bolsters and Cocobolo scales on a full tang. A spent .22 magnum shell served as the thong hole tubing.

The bottom knife was from this years auction. It had a Diamondwood handle with some fancy spacers and a bolt style rivet. There is also an inlay around the spine of the handle.

Father-in-law's Fillet Knife

This was made in Moses Lake for my Father-in-law. It had a blade of 1/16" thick ATS34. I had it sub-sero quenched, but that made it too stiff for some reason. There were some other things about it that proved to not be so great. The Diamondwood handle got very slippery when your hands were covered in fish slime and brass bolster would turn green if you didn't clean it off well. I find that brass works well for hunting knives, but not so well for fillet knives.

Wife's Letter Opener

The top and bottom knives were in another post already, however I have not yet talked about the letter opener that I made for my wife. It had a blade of 1/16" thick ATS-34. The handle was from Pink Ivory (wood) with mosaic pins that I made myself. I made this just before I moved to Moses Lake. We were not yet married and were writing letters to keep in touch. It was before the days of email and Facebook. She still keeps it on her desk.

Carving Knife

This was the only time someone asked me for a carving knife. It was for my fishing buddy in Moses Lake. The blade was from 1/16" thick ATS-34. The handle was a nice multi-colored Diamondwood with a stainless steel bolster. It turned out well, but I don't think that I would make one for fun.

More Drop Point Hunters

Theses were both made in Moses Lake for friends at work. The top one had a multi-colored Diamondwood handle with a blade from ATS-34. I have never really liked gut hooks. I always thought that they were more of a gimmick than any thing, but that is what he wanted. The bottom knife was for my friend's son-in-law on his birthday. It had a D2 blade and a Corian spacer on the bloodwood handle. He was happy with it.

Family Knives

These were made for family members. To the best of my knowledge they still have them. I made them Moses Lake.

The top two went to my Dad. He has never used them, but I did use the top one on my first deer years later. I had to borrow it because I didn't have a hunting knife of my own (can you believe it?). The blades were from 1/8" thick D2 and the handles were multi-colored Diamondwood. 

The bottom knife here is the same as the one above. The bowie knife though was for my brother as a gift. He liked the USMC airforce survival knives, so I made him a fancy one. The blade was 1/4" thick O1 and the handle was white Micarta.

More Bird and Trout Knives

These Knives were made back when I was about 15 years old. They had blades of O1 tool steel. I was using O1 almost exclusively at that time. It was my step up from using old car springs and saw blades. I could buy O1 from the local machine shop supply store and a local knife maker would heat treat it for me. O1 was nice and easy to work with, it held a good edge and was easy to sharpen. I found out later just how easy it was to rust. That was when I started looking into D2. These were popular little knives. I made a quite a few and I even sold some at the local knife shop in the mall.

This little guy had a brass guard, red spacers and a handle made from white Corian and Australian Iron Bark.

The handle on this knife was made from black Paper Micarta. I can't find the picture of it, but down the middle of the handle were two red inlays.

Norm's Knives

These were made for a friend of mine (Norm) in Moses Lake. It must have been close to 10 years ago now. I traded them for some tools. I think the blades were from 1/8" thick ATS-34 since that is mostly what I was using around that time. He always wanted a knife with .22 shells for rivets. He noticed that a .22LR shell would slide perfectly into a .22 Magnum shell. So that is what I made for him. The top knife had a multi-colored Diamondwood handle with a full tang. The rivets are spent .22 shells, including the thong hole tube. I made quite a few knives in that design. However it was the only one that had .22 shells for the rivets as well as the thong hole tube. I still prefer to the .22 Magnum shells for the thong hole tubing. It's just cool. The bottom knife had a whitetail antler handle. That was another knife that I made a few of. Whitetail antlers are a little on the small side and the little drop point lends itself well to them.

Bowie Knives

I don't make very many bowie knives. I just don't see any practical use for them. However I have done a few.

This knife was made from 1/4" thick 440C. I think it is the only time I have used that steel on a knife. It had a Cocobolo handle with a white Micarta spacer. It was made in Moses Lake and I traded it for a computer.

I made this one in Moses Lake as well. It had a 1/4" thick blade of O-1. I forget what the handle wood was. It went to a friend on his birthday.

Finger Knives

I've made a few of these over the years. Unfortunatly, these are the only pictures that I have. These knives are very small and just fit in two fingers when gripped. I got the idea from a friend and fellow knifemaker.  One that I made (not pictured) went to a taxidermist in Canada. The top two were made about 15 years ago and I gave them to my Dad. They had 1/8" thick blades from D2. The bottom one was made about 5 years ago and had a blade of 1/8" thick CPM-S30V. It went to another friend at work who used it to skin a 500lb black bear.

Boys Hunting Knife

This was made for a friend at work about two years ago. He wanted something to give his nephew for Christmas. The blade was 1/8" thick CPM-S30V and the handle was made from split whitetail deer antler with stainless steel pins. He really liked it.

Drop Point Hunter

My brother calls this a utility knife but I designed it as a simple hunting knife that would have the same handle as my skinning knives. A lot of people really liked the size and feel of the skinning knives below, but they wanted a drop point blade. This was my solution. It had a blade of CPM-S30V, black paper micarta scales, brass liners and mosaic pins that I made myself. This one actually ended up going to Austria.

Skinning Knives

My grandfather had a drawer full of knives that I used to look through as a kid. In that drawer was an Old Timer Sharp Finger. It was a cool knife that he would use to butcher cows with, but it didn't hold a very good edge. So I re-designed it a little so that I could make it out of a 1 inch wide piece of steel. For these knives I used 1/8" thick CPM-S30V. I am getting ready to make another batch out of ATS-34.

The top knife has canvas Micarta scales with stainless steel pins. It was made about three or four years ago for a friend at work.

The second knife has black paper Micarta scales, brass dovetailed bolsters, red liners and mosaic pins that I made myself. It was made a year ago for a friend at work. He gave it to his son as a birthday gift. They used it this year on a really nice buck that his son shot.

The fourth picture shows a knife that I made three years ago with Cocobolo scales and stainless steel pins. My old boss bought it from me.

Next is one that I made with multi-colored Diamondwood scales around the same time as the others. I don't remember who bought it.

Last is one with blue Diamondwood scales that my Dad bought from me. I used bolt style rivets that I really like. They give a bulls eye effect on one side of the knife and there is no way that the handle will come off. He still has it and would be willing to sell it if anyone was interested.

Full Tang Hunter with Finger Groove

A friend of mine drew this about three years ago and asked me if I could build it for him. It had a CPM S30V blade and a Cocobolo handle. He ended up giving it away as a gift (to his nephew if I remember correctly). Then he came back to me and had me build a second one for himself. I was pleased with this design and may make more in the future.