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.

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.

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.

Kitchen Knife Collection

A collection of various kitchen knives that I made. All but the cake knife were made in Moses Lake. All blades are made from ATS-34 stainless steel. I will list them starting from the top.

First is a fillet knife that I made for myself. I used it quite a bit for many years. The blade was 1/16" thick and very flexible. The handle is micarta and the guard is stainless steel. The guard was designed differently then any other knife I have done. I was concerned about the blade breaking off at the guard when it was flexed. This design proved to be very strong. I recently sold this knife since I don't do much fishing any more, but I kind of miss this one.

Second is a cake knife that I made for our wedding. The handle is white micarta and has red spacers between the micarta and the knife tang. The bolster is dovetailed brass and the blade is engraved with our wedding date.

Third is a kitchen knife that I detail in a previous post.

Fourth is a little one-piece bird and trout knife that I made for myself. I sand blasted the handle for a little more grip. It is still in my lunch box and gets used quite frequently.

Fourth is a paring knife that I made for my wife. It has a Pakawood handle and stainless pins. The handle is too small for her so she never uses it.