This is another skinning knife that I recently finished. It went to Texas. The blade is 1/8 inch thick D2. The handle is made from Cocobolo and uses stainless steel Loveless style fasteners. the pouch is from Knife Dogs.

Hunting Knife

This is the second knife that I have made in this style. I was lucky enough to try out the first one on a deer this year. It worked very well and is the best "overall" hunting knife shape and size that I have yet to come across. The D2 blade is 1/8 inch thick and about 4 inches long to the bottom of the finger guard. The overall length is 7.75 inches. Black paper based Micarta has a nice shine to it and set a striking backdrop for the stainless and brass Loveless style fasteners.

Here is another "kit" fillet knife that I made recently. A friend of mine bought it as a Christmas gift to himself. The blade is 1/16 inch thick by 5.5 inches long. The overall length is 10.25 inches. It is made from AUS 8A Stainless Steel. This is a Japanese steel with vanadium and chromium. This makes for a flexible blade that is easy to sharpen while still offering good edge holding capabilities. Many of my friends use this blade for more than fish. It has seen service with rabbits, ducks, deer and even elk. One of them has a home in my kitchen as well. The handle is Diamond wood which is a brand of plastic impregnated and laminated wood. It polishes to a nice shine and is waterproof. The fasteners are brass and stainless steel.

Youth Skinning Knife

This little skinning knife is made from 1/8 inch thick D2 and Padauk wood. The fasteners are Loveless style. Even though the handle is "youth size", it is still quite comfortable to my hands. I just finished it today.

New Skinning Knife

This was designed for a friend to give to his daughter on her birthday. I really like the way it turned out. In my opinion it is better than the "Old Timer Sharp Finger" knives that have been so popular for me. This style is definitely going into my favorites list. The wood was donated by a mutual friend who is a cabinet and musical instrument maker. It is a type of Rosewood that is commonly used in custom guitars. I wish I could remember what it was called. It works and finishes well. The blade is 1/8 inch D2 with Loveless style fasteners.

Drop Point Hunting Knife

This knife was originally for myself, designed to be a shorter version of this hunting knife. After trying the design, I decided that it was too wide for me and a tad too short. It is 3.25 inches long by 1 inch wide. Although it did work well for skinning. After using this style I came up with the design listed below. The handle is Whitetail Deer Antler with brass bolt style fasteners.  The blade is 1/8 in thick D2.

Personal Hunting Knife.

I am really excited to try this knife. After experimenting with many different styles, shapes and sizes I think that this may be my be my favorite. I designed it to be good for field dressing and skinning alike. The blade is 1/8 inch thick D2 that is 3.5 to 4 inches long (depending on where you measure it from). Overall length is 7.75 inches long. The handle is green canvas Micarta with Loveless style fasteners. There are red liners between the tang and Micarta as well.

Elk Handle Large Skinning Knife

Here is the last of the three large skinning knives. I finished it last week. It is ground from the same 1/8"  thick D2 as the other two. The elk antler was from another animal though. This antler was from a piece that sat out in the woods longer and showed more signs of age. I thought that it made for some nice character. The bolsters are dovetailed stainless and the rivets are brass bolt style. This time I decided to make the sheath myself. The knife was given to a teenage boy who just lost his father to MS.

Another Skinning Knife

These are really popular. I just finished it today. It is a gift to a friend. The blade is 1/8 inch thick D2. Black Paper Micarta serves as the handle material along with brass bolt style rivets and a .22 magnum shell.

Personal Large Drop Point

I liked the two of these that I made for my Dad so much that I made one for myself. It is basically identical  except that I used a .22 magnum shell in the end of the handle instead of a .223 shell in the middle of the handle.

Second Large Drop Point

Here is the second large drop point hunting knife for my dad. It is basically identical to the first with a D2 blade and jigged buffalo bone handle. The rivets are Loveless style bolts and the thong hole tubing is a .223 shell.

Second Large Skinner

This is the second knife of the pair. The knives are pretty much identical and they will be owned by brothers.

Another Micarta Skinning Knife

Here is yet another micarta skinning knife for a friend at work. It is made from 1/8 inch thick D2 with brass bolt style rivets and a .22 magnum shell. The sheath was made by my buddy Jeff Hays.

Cocobolo Skinning Knife

This was made for a friend at work. He is giving it to his step-son for his birthday. The blade is 1/8 inch thick D2. The handle is cross-cut Cocobolo. Jeff Hays of Hays Holsters made the sheath for me and I like how he did it.

Large Drop Point Knife

This is about the largest drop point hunting knife that I have made. The blade is 5.25 inches long by 1/8 inch thick D2. The overall length of the knife is 9.75 inches. The guard is of brass and the rivets are Loveless style bolts that create a nice bulls-eye effect. Handle material is jigged buffalo bone. The hole in the handle is for securing it to the sheath and it is lined with a 223 shell. It is the first of two such knives that I am making for my Dad.

Large Skinning Knife

This is one of the larger skinning knives that I have made. The blade is 7.5 inches long with an over all of 10.25 inches. It is made made from 1/8 inch thick D2. The handle is elk antler and the fittings are dovetailed stainless. It is the first of two that a friend of mine at work asked for. He hopes to use it on a buffalo this year.

Micarta Skinning Knife

A friend at work ordered this skinning knife. I just finished it today. It has a D2 blade that is 1/8" thick. The handle material is Black Paper Micarta and is held together with brass bolt style fasteners. The thong hole tubing is a spent .22 magnum shell.

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.

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.

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.