Hunting knives with their own hands. Metal for hunting knives

A warning!
This article is written solely in the interests of the author to convey information to people about how knives are made, what they are and what they can be used for. That the right knife can become your friend and comrade, who will help you out more than once.
If you dear readers decide to make a knife with your own hands, then keep in mind that in Russian Federation, there is a law: Article 222 of the Criminal Code, Part 4 and Article 223 of the Criminal Code, Part 4. Illegal sale and manufacture of edged weapons is a criminal offense and that any product must be certified. And if you get to the lawyers with such a product, such excuses as “I didn’t know” will not save you. (It’s better to say - “I found it for you to hand over.” And mentally say goodbye to your favorite product.)
So many people, having made a knife exclusively, in self-educational motives, got into trouble with the law. Keep this in mind.

Types of steel for knives

What is steel. Steel is iron with various additives (the chemical composition of the alloy), iron with a carbon content is quite simple. There are three layers of laminated steel from different grades. There is a Damascus sandwich made of hundreds of layers of steel, two three grades of steel, more often than two.
What steel to choose for a knife and where to get it?
This table shows the most suitable steels for making knives that you can find at your fingertips.

steel grade	Description	Where to find
A-2	Holds a sharp edge very well. Self hardening steel. Very often used in the manufacture of combat knives. Subject to corrosion.	Regular bolts
L-6	Very strong and holds an edge well. If you need strength in a knife, then this is it. Corrosion resistant An excellent material for making a fishing fillet knife.	Band saw blade
5160	High grade steel. Holds an edge well and is susceptible to corrosion.	Springs of automobiles and tractor equipment.
52100	Similar to the 5160 grade, it differs in carbon content, which is what the number 100 indicates (contains about 1% carbon). This steel is widely used in the manufacture of hunting knives. subject to corrosion.	Bearings
R6M5	The best steel for making alloy steel knives. Excellent sharpening, cuts very well, cuts the bone.	Pendulum saw blade for metal. Thickness 2mm. Disc cutter for metal. Thickness 5 mm.
154CM or ATS-34 (ATS-34)	The most popular stainless steel for making knives.	To order: the price is approximately 3500 rubles per strip 3x25x250

Blade shapes.

Combat or tactical knife of its features.

Combat knife handle.

An extremely negative characteristic of the knife handle is its round section. Because the handle during the fight can slip and the fighter will not be able to control the exact position of the blade. And imagine that a fighter is wielding a knife in slush conditions, or even worse, bloody. So when choosing a knife, pay attention to the handle, it should be oval, have special lining and sit well in your hand.

Sharpening.

A combat knife is most effective when it has a two-sided sharpening or one and a half. A fighter during the battle can use both sides of the blade without turning it over.\

Blade width.

Also, for a combat knife, the width of the blade is very important, which should be at least 2.5 centimeters. This primarily contributes to wide wounds, and secondly, wide slopes reduce the angle of sharpening, which is responsible for cutting properties.

Blade shape.

The importance of blade shape should not be overlooked. The optimal shape is the shape of a leaf or a leaf-shaped shape, and if it is made with differential sharpening, plus sereytor sharpening plays a not bad role in combat knives.

Limiter.

Any combat knife has a limiter; its function is to protect the hand during stabbing. That is, it does not allow the hand to slip onto the blade during impact.

Knife length.

This is also an important thing in combat knives. Judge for yourself if the knife is short, then vital organs will not be hit during the blow, the meaning of the combat knife is lost. A knife that is too long is easy to knock out of your hand, hard to carry and hard to hide. So the optimal length of the knife is 18-30 centimeters.

Blade hardness.

This feature applies not only to combat knives, but to all knives in general, if the steel of the blade is not hard enough, then it will either break or bend and not keep sharpening quickly dull. In combat knives, it is necessary to overcome the material of special clothing, which has recently been supplied to almost all the armies of the world. For example, the Ratnik 3 outfit has a fabric that can withstand fragmentation loads. Judge for yourself how hard and sharp the blade should have. According to the norms, it should be at least 47-55 HRC.

The location of the tip in relation to the axis.

The edge of the knife must be strictly at the level of its axis. After all, during a stabbing blow with a knife, all the energy is focused precisely on the tip of the knife, and the displacement from the axis will have a negative effect on the knife; the penetrating ability is lost.

Knife weight.

The optimal weight of the knife is considered to be about 200-300 grams. If the knife is heavy, then it will take a lot of effort to use it, and a light one will not give a result when struck.

Center of gravity.

It is important that the center of gravity of the knife is closer to the handle.

Sheath requirements.

The sheath should be: light, without fasteners, the sheath knife should be securely fastened in the sheath and not fall out, the sheath should be dark in color. The fastening of the scabbard should not interfere with the fighter's movement. The knife should be taken out of the sheath silently.

Combat knives of Russia

“By looking through the chronicle texts, you can find a lot of evidence that Russian people have been able to use knives in battle since those times. What is the description of the siege of the city of Kozelsk by Batu Khan. When entering the city with a fight, he was met by the townspeople with knives, they overcame the course of the battle in their favor, drove the enemy out of the city and slaughtered 4000 Tatars. Since those times, little has changed in the Russian spirit and the knife. When the foreign military considers a knife a "weapon of last chance", that is, during a battle it is the last hope for salvation. Then a Russian person has a knife and a bayonet, which plays a completely different role. Shouts of cheers and the tip of the bayonet always terrified and feared the enemy.

The progenitor of the Russian combat knife of the army is considered to be a knife (army knife of 1940), (scout knife of 1940). These knives were armed with the military, who had a machine gun instead of a rifle with a bayonet, and the scouts themselves understand why.
Now you can find new knives made by analogy, they are produced by the AiR company under the product name "Reconnaissance Battalion" - hunting and "Penal Battalion" - civilian version.
It is produced in four versions: Airborne, Marine, Border Troops, Special Forces. The difference lies in the emblems of the troops that are applied to the blades and the color of the stripes on the handle.
At the same time, 1940, they began to produce for the NKVD services.
In 1943, the HP-40 knife underwent many changes and Soviet intelligence officers got into service HP-43. He was with a straight guard, leather scabbard, a plastic handle and a metal pommel that allowed it to be used in many rough power moments (even to hammer in a nail) the second name of the knife is "Cherry". The knife was so well designed and thought out that it is still used in some troops.
In 1960, to replace the HP-43 knife, the special service entered a silent cartridge firing from the handle with a 7.62 mm caliber bullet. NRS (scout knife shooting). This knife has also undergone changes, becoming which at the moment is the main combat knife of sabotage brigades. Its scabbard is designed in a special way and allows you to bite the wire, the blade, unlike the NRS, has become spear-shaped, the saw on the butt has become two times shorter. The cartridge in the handle was replaced with a modernized SP-4.
Soviet paratroopers, at that time, were completed which were intended for cutting the lines of a paratrooper hanging on a tree. The sling cutter was not intended for combat, but the military, sharpening the tip and one side of the saw, repurposed this item into
Since those times, the government, money, a lot has changed, various gadgets have appeared, knives have not stood still either. They were made according to various orders of the army and internal units of the troops.
These knives include - this knife was produced by Zlatoust by order of SOBR, which exists in three variations of a combat knife, premium and civilian.
— designed for law enforcement agencies of the FSB is available in two types "Swipe-1" And "Maestro" the handle of which can be made of various materials."Maestro"- differs in that it is made in anti-reflective design.
Knife "Antiterror"- made for the FSB. The shape of the blade has high penetrating characteristics, the cutting part has a cavity, which increases the length of the cutting edge.
Combat knives series. Knives of this series differ from each other in the following ways:
"Katran -1" underwater combat knife has one and a half sharpening. The butt has a wave-like sharpening in the root part of the butt there is a hook designed for cutting nets. The scabbard is made of rubber and all metal parts are covered with black chrome.
"Katran -1-S"- designed for ground forces. Made of steel 50X14 MF with anti-reflective treatment.
"Katran -2"- Leather grip.
"Katran-45"— exclusive specially made for the 45th Airborne Regiment Has a metal saw on the butt.
- the knife is designed and made by order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tatarstan. It has a double-sided sharpening in the root part, the sharpening turns into a sereytor one designed for cutting climbing slings, a septenary guard, a handle from a set of leather, there is a modification of Shaitan-M (throwing knife) that can withstand up to 3000 throws.
designed and made by order of SOBR for work on the streets and in cramped conditions.
adopted by the FSB
Popular abroad knife Corsair. He fascinated the Germans with his form and execution. The catalogs describe it as one of the best knives in Russia.
A stalker knife, or which in shape so resembles a sling cutter modified on the knee by paratroopers. By the way, this knife is used by the Slovak military.
The development of the company "Melita-K" which took HP-43 as a basis.
This knife was developed by one person in collaboration with the Center for Applied Research. It was developed for saboteurs, taking into account the specifics of hand-to-hand combat. Tested on animal carcasses. The goal was also to find the optimal knife with a stopping effect when stabbed with a knife.
Knife or K-2. The perfect knife created taking into account all the requirements of our legislation so as not to attribute it to melee weapons. The tests carried out on this knife are somewhat impressive and take special pride for the fact that this knife was developed by a Russian man without any large investments. And with all this, the knife surpasses all foreign knives in terms of characteristics and has no analogues in the world.
The knife is designed for ordinary people even for a child. The main purpose of the knife is self-defense.

Popular foreign combat knives

I did not begin to write out all the knives that are abroad, if this is done, then the article will be more than one tens of thousands of words. You just get tired of reading it. And so here are the most popular combat knives that are found abroad.

Bowie knife

Wood processing for knife handle

For woodworking, you will need sanding paper with a grit of 120-150 for shaping, you can use 40-60 just do not overdo it, for the final processing use sanding paper with a grit of 600-800. Prepare a couple of wooden blocks that are comfortable to hold in your hand. On one of the bars, fix a plate of dense rubber with a thickness of at least 3 mm. after which you can wrap the band of sanding paper and start grinding the knife handle. The second bar, already without rubber, will also be used at the junction of the blade guard with the handle (this is done so that there are no differences between the blade and the handle).
Here are perhaps the most simple tools which can be adapted without significant costs and begin to process your future handle.
When sanding light wood species, at the end of the whole work, in order to avoid the ingestion of small particles formed from sanding paper, it is necessary to use the wet sanding method. The essence of this grinding is the constant impregnation linseed oil wood, which not only prevents the ingestion of small particles, but also contributes to a brighter highlighting of the texture and pattern of wood. Impregnation with linseed oil should be done with each change of sanding paper. At the very end, after grinding, the handle is impregnated with shellac.
If porous wood is being processed, and any root wood can belong to it, shells can form, which the craftsmen simply rub with epoxy glue, after mixing it with sawdust of the same wood species.

Birch knife handle

One of the popular handles is the birch bark knife handle. It does not look bad, gives a peculiar pattern or texture, so to speak.
The principle of preparing the blank is almost the same everywhere, they harvest birch bark, remove it from the birch (the birch dies after a few seasons). They cut the birch bark into even pieces, they are pressed, squeezed, glued, after drying they are processed as ordinary tree, a deliberately mounted blank on the blade or a special device.
Not so long ago I saw an unusual method that speeds up the preparation of a blank for a birch bark handle, I will try to describe it in detail.
One master told how to make a knife handle from birch bark. Having prepared birch bark, he cuts small circles out of it with the help of. The notch is made from the outer ring of the bearing with an end face sharpened on one side. With this notch, he fills a lot of circles from birch bark, after which he knocks out a hole in the circles in the center in the same way (the center is not specially measured) with a diameter of 8 mm. Further, all the prepared mugs of birch bark, he puts on a length of about 20 cm. tries to plant the side, not to turn over to the side. After that, it clamps with washers and nuts, stretches and sends such a workpiece to a pot of boiling water for 4 hours. Every hour it is necessary to get the workpiece and stretch it as far as possible. After 4 hours of welding, the workpiece is taken out and dried during the day, while the broach must be repeated while the nut is being pulled. After the birch bark dries out, the workpiece decreases in length by almost half (keep this in mind when making the initial set of circles). After such procedures for cooking and broaching, the workpiece becomes monolithic, which was required of it. Now remove the workpiece from the hairpin, you can put it on the blade shank and process it as you like.
Very comfortable and most importantly fast way preparation of a handle for a knife from birch bark.
The process of preparing a blank for a knife handle is described above. Further, naturally, according to all the canons, it is necessary to process it sanding paper, impregnate with varnish, as indicated above, in the section on how to prepare a wooden knife handle.

The handle of the knife is made of bone or horn.

This is the most difficult occupation, making a knife handle from bone or horn. In order to make a handle from a horn, you need to make a handle from some other material at least a couple of times.
If you are thinking of making a horn hilt, then you will need the HORN naturally, and it must be dried. It usually dries from 0.5 to 2 years. There is a faster way, it is simply dried in the microwave for 5 minutes for half an hour for maximum power before allowing to cool and ventilate. Of course, not the whole horn is dried, but only the workpiece.
In general, an incorrectly chosen horn can initially cause you a lot of trouble. It can get wet, rotten inside, cracked. And all this pops up at the most inopportune moment.
Also, the handle can be made from hollow bone. The bone cavity can be pre-filled cold welding or epoxy glue with a pre-prepared filler. The bone is also easily deformed under pressure; it must first be boiled for 30 minutes and sent to the press without waiting for cooling.

Types of sharpening and removal of descents

In order to sharpen the blade normally, you first need to know that it needs to be stabbed before sharpening, because for the future blade it is required from 0.2 mm to 0.6 mm in thickness, depending on the type of steel. Secondly, you should not sharpen a knife on electric emery. The circle rotates at high speed, reaching 3000 rpm. From such a rotation speed, not only a significant layer of the descent of the workpiece is processed, but also loses its hardness.
There are many ways to take the slopes off the blade, someone uses diamond files, someone uses a grinding belt on the machine, one of these is correct, until the angular requirement is met, the result cannot be achieved. For beginners in such cases, sharpening sets that allow you to adjust the required angles are helpful.
During sharpening, burrs are formed, the edge is filled up or the creation of a lentil-shaped profile, which must be processed, because such an edge quickly becomes dull or sits down. There are two ways to fix this, it is to use a special grinding stone with paste or the old-fashioned way a leather belt mounted on a wooden block with a pastogo attached to a wooden block.
Also, a beginner may mistakenly think that the knife is sharpened due to the formation of a “wire cutting edge”, this feature lies in the cutting part not of the blade itself, but of the chips that were not completely cleaned and which formed as a result of sharpening.
How to check the sufficiency of sharpening a knife. You can check the sharpness of the knife sharpening using a sheet of paper that needs to be cut across. The sheet should be cut easily without jamming or changing the cut. Or can you just take the hair and effortlessly cut it off the hair is cut? means sharpening is sufficient.

If you want to make a simple but high-quality do-it-yourself knife, you can take a closer look at this instruction. The considered knife has a simple and elegant appearance, it’s easy to assemble when you compare this homemade product with others. During the manufacturing process, the blade is hardened, which makes the knife not dull for a long time and sharpens well.

For ease of manufacture, a belt sander is required; without it, the process of forming bevels and grinding will be long and tedious. To make this knife you will need high carbon steel, it can be 1095 or 1070. I chose 1070 steel.

Materials and tools for making a knife:
- steel 1095 or 1070;
- paper, felt-tip pen (or a ready-made knife template);
- wood, deer horn (or other material for making a handle);
- pins made of copper or brass for attaching the handle;
- tape grinding machine;
- a drill with drills (or rather a drilling machine);
- a furnace or other source of heat for hardening steel;
- files, sandpaper of different grain sizes, WD-40, etc.;
- linseed oil for impregnating the handle;
- a tape cutting machine (in the most extreme case, a grinder and a lot of patience).

Knife making process:

Step one. blank
In the manufacture of any knife, everything starts with a template. You can download a ready-made template and simply print it on a printer. Or you can develop your own. Next, the template must be cut out and then glued to the sheet of metal from which the workpiece will be made. Or the template can simply be circled, but paper is easier to work with.

Then the most difficult part begins, you need to cut the main profile of the knife. If you don't have a band saw, like the author does, then this process will be more difficult and time consuming. Theoretically, the work can be done with an ordinary grinder.

Step two. Drilling holes
In the next step, the author drills holes for the pins that will hold the handle. There should be at least two such pins. But for beauty, you can do more. Holes are easy to drill drilling machine. Select the diameter depending on the thickness of your pins.

Step three. Workpiece grinding
Before grinding our workpiece, you will first need to work a little with a file. With it, you will need to remove the burrs that formed after drilling. Also, if too rough edges remain on the knife, they can be carefully grinded off with a grinder. Well, then a belt sander comes to the rescue. We carefully process the profile on it so that in shape it becomes the way it was originally intended.

When working on the draw frame, it is imperative to use a respirator and it is advisable to wear safety goggles, as a lot of metal dust is generated. Although our blade will be hardened, it is not necessary to allow excessive overheating of the metal.

Step four. We form bevels
The next step is the formation of bevels and this occupation can be considered the most responsible. The sharpening angle determines the cutting characteristics of the knife and how easy it will be to sharpen in the future. For a knife to cut well, the blade must be thin, and for a knife to cut well and be strong, the blade must be made thicker.

It is also important to remember that if the metal blade is too thin before hardening, it will overheat too much and the hardening will turn out to be of poor quality, or not at all. So it is better to first form the main profile of the bevels, and then refine it on a belt grinder, and preferably manually.

To form the bevels correctly, first you need to draw a line on the workpiece and only then, focusing on this line, grind the metal. In general, here you will need some skills to work with a grinder.

Step five. Tempering the blade
Now we need to harden the steel, so it will become elastic, and the metal will not bend when cutting hard objects, moreover, the knife will keep hardening well. The hardening temperature is selected depending on the type of steel. If we talk about steel with a high carbon content, then it is usually heated to a temperature of up to 800 ° C.

To understand to what temperature to heat the metal, if you do not know what kind of steel it is, you can use a permanent magnet. As soon as the magnet ceases to be attracted to it as the steel heats up, the steel can be cooled.

More define desired temperature heating can be on a special color scale.

The metal is usually cooled in oil, in rare cases the steel is hardened between two plates, in water or in air.

After quenching steel, there is one more trick - this is steel tempering. If the steel is not released, then the blade may shatter into small pieces when it falls, as the metal will be too brittle. To make it more resistant to mechanical stress, we place the blade in an oven with a temperature of about 200 ° C. Here our knife should warm up for an hour, and then cool down with the oven. As a result, the release of metal will occur.

In conclusion, I would like to remind you that the quenching oil should not be cold, otherwise it may be too thick. If the oil is thick, it may need to be heated.

Step six. Blade cleaning
After quenching in oil and heating, there will be a lot of contamination on the metal. How to deal with them, here everyone decides for himself. You can lightly walk on the steel with a belt grinder, and then finish the metal by hand. Or, armed with sandpaper and WD-40, you can manually clean the metal.
The author set himself the task of polishing the steel to mirror shine. Here he needed a polishing wheel with paste.

Step seven. Installing the handle
The author makes the handle from wood, but you can choose the material to your taste. First you will need to take two blanks, tighten them with clamps and then drill two holes, at the beginning and at the end. These holes must line up with the holes in the metal part. It is advisable to drive holes in steel with a drill in order to clean it. Well, then epoxy glue comes to the rescue. It must be applied over the entire area into two halves, and then carefully tighten them with clamps or clamp them in a vise. At the same stage, you must not forget to hammer the pins into the handles.

Step eight. The final stage of knife assembly
When the epoxy glue is completely dry, the clamps can be removed and now the knife is again sent for grinding. This time, with the help of a grinder, you need to set the profile of the handle. Well, this parameter corresponds to the profile of the blade, where the wooden handle is attached. So we just level the wood at the level of the metal. A rough profile can be set with a rasp.

You will also need to remove all burrs, bumps, and so on. In the end, you need to bring the handle to a perfectly smooth state. This is done by reducing the grit on a belt sander. It is also desirable to grind the handle manually with fine sandpaper.

When the pen is ready, you will need to protect it from moisture. Here linseed oil will come to the rescue, they need to thoroughly soak the handle. In addition to protection, it will also beautify her appearance. It is also important to take care of the protection of the blade if it is made of quickly rusting metal.

That's all, the knife is almost ready, the final step remains - sharpening. The author sharpens the knife to the state of the blade. He should cut paper without problems no worse than a clerical knife. For such fine sharpening, you can use a water stone or round polishing.

If you want to make your knife unique, you can engrave or engrave the desired inscription on it.

A hunting knife is essential for every hunter. It is primarily used for finishing off and butchering prey, but beyond that it remains faithful assistant in the most different situations on the hunt. Now on sale you can find a huge number of various models and modifications of blades. But, despite this, the need to make a knife for yourself may arise. Usually this happens due to the inability to buy the right blade, either in return for a lost or broken one, or seen from friends and liked, or there is not exactly the knife that you need for sale.

Making a knife from a 9HF saw

In this article, we will not focus on the shape and design of the blade, the type and width of sharpening, etc. We believe that finished project or we already have a sample and focus on the production itself.

A homemade hunting knife, so that it meets the basic requirements for such blades, is recommended to be made from high-carbon alloy steels. For example:

• 9HF- tool alloy steel, used for the manufacture of frame, tape and circular saws, punches, trimming dies and a number of other tools. Usually, saw blades are taken as blanks;
• R6M5– high-speed alloy steel of high strength. It is used for the manufacture of many types of cutting tools, drills, saw circles, and the latter can be used to make a workpiece;
• 65G- spring steel, with high wear resistance, can be blued and blackened. They make springs, springs, gears, etc. For blanks, in addition to sheets, rear springs of trucks are used. Considered one of the cheapest knife materials;
• X12, R3M3F2 and a number of others are also suitable.

The material for the workpiece can be taken from the above products, although now on the Internet you can order a plate for the workpiece from almost any steel. As a recommendation, take a pendulum saw blade for metal, the usual dimensions are 400x30 mm, 2 mm thick, the surface is rough, the color is black or gray.
If you want to make homemade knife at home, in addition to the material for the workpiece, we need:

• Angle grinder (Bulgarian)
• Circles for it, cutting off for alloy steel, for example inox A54S BF, sharpening and grinding.
• Drill or drilling machine
• Vise
• Pobeditovoye and other special drills
• Files and diamond file
• Sanding machine (very desirable).

The process of making a knife will be as follows:

The knife handle can be wound with paracord or made of wood, in the latter case, we drill holes in the handle according to a template, according to a sample or drawing. Holes are drilled with special drills with concomitant cooling with oil. It is more convenient to do this on a drilling machine.

To simplify the process, the holes are drilled first with small diameter drills, and then gradually reamed to the desired size.

Handle

Knives are made with different handles. The choice of material for their manufacture depends on the purpose for which the knife is intended, ease of use and the personal preferences of the owner. Below are two ways to make a knife handle at home.

Wrap the handle with paracord in a few minutes

Using a paracord cord as a knife handle is not only easier and faster, but also more practical. You will always have a couple of meters of cord with you, which can be used for a variety of purposes, when surviving in extreme situations.

For winding we need:

• cord, 2 - 2.5 m;
• thick tape or electrical tape;
• lighter or matches;
• scissors;
• gloves;
• screwdriver.

Before you start winding the cord, decide if you need a lanyard loop and, if necessary, where it will be, on the side of the blade near the stop or at the end of the handle. If it is available, in addition to the ability to hang a knife, in the first case, you can put your thumb through it to make it more convenient and reliable to hold the knife, in the second, you can remove the knife from its sheath, etc.

Winding paracord is done in this order:

• We wet the cord, while it stretches better, and when dry, it will sit no more monolithically on the knife.
• We seal the knife blade with tape or tape to avoid accidental cuts or cutting the cord. All operations are best performed with gloves.
  
• We press one end of the cord on the head of the handle so that 10 cm remains free.
  
• From the cord we form a loop laid along the handle so that the top of the loop protrudes a couple of centimeters beyond the cord winding zone.
  
• Then holding the knife in your left hand and pressing both ends of the loop with your thumb, right hand we begin to wind the cord around the handle, starting from its head.
  We make the winding tight, turn to turn, do not tighten it at all, we take into account that the cord will still sit down after drying.
  
• Having brought the winding to the stop at the blade, we pass the remaining end of the cord into the protruding part of the loop.
• We cut off the excess cord, leaving about 3 - 5 cm, and burn the end of the cord.
  
• After that, pulling the free end of the cord from the side of the head of the handle, we pull the loop under the winding until the end threaded into it disappears under the winding. Avoid fully stretching the loop, otherwise the entire winding will unravel.

The wrapping is complete. With this option, we will not have a winding loop for a lanyard. If we want to form it, the winding is somewhat complicated. Initially, two loops are laid on the handle on both sides of the knife.

To form a loop under the lanyard on the head of the knife, the end of the cord is pressed on the head of the handle and one loop is pulled up to the blade, then the cord is thrown over the headband and the second loop is also laid on the other side. The winding starts from the head of the knife. Having finished the winding, the remaining end is threaded into both loops near the blade and pulled under the winding by the loop in the headband, thereby forming it.

In order for the loop to be near the stop, we do everything the same, but on the contrary, we begin to lay and wind from the stop, in the same place we pull the loop to tighten the clamped end under the winding.

Making a false handle as an alternative to paracord

If you are an adherent of the classics and want to make a regular handle, use a tree for this purpose. It is more accessible, easier to work with, the wooden handle is more pleasant to the touch, does not cool, slips less in the hand, and if processed correctly, does not take moisture. The knife handle can be made of oak, beech, maple, birch, walnut or mahogany. In order not to waste time and effort on preparing and drying wood, there are two simple ways get her. The first is parquet, you can buy it in a special store, where, by the way, expensive varieties are sold by the piece. Second - old furniture, in the attic, in the garage, in the country, with friends, you can always find unnecessary household trash and use it.
For the handle you need two dies if you have a hand standard size, then 10 - 15 mm thick, this is with a margin for processing, so that the thickness of the future handle is about 20 mm. The length of the workpieces is 150 - 200 mm, so that there is room for their fixation during initial processing.

In addition to the tree, we need:

• dowels made of aluminum, copper, brass, iron according to the number of holes of the corresponding diameter;
• drill with drills or drilling machine;
• drills according to the number of holes in the handle of the same diameter;
• a grinding or grinding machine, it can be replaced by a file for wood and a lot, a lot of time;
• electric jigsaw or manual jigsaw, or see the previous paragraph;
• engraving machine or file with a file;
• emery cloth of different numbers up to the smallest;
• epoxy adhesive;
• linseed oil;
• thick tape or electrical tape;
• vise, clamp.

We make the handle as follows:

1. Before starting work, we wrap the knife blade with tape or tape to avoid accidental cuts.
2. The first step is drilling. We put the knife blank on a wooden plate, press it with a clamp or, at worst, wrap it with tape and drill holes. To make the hole neat, first drill with a thin drill, and then drill to desired diameter. After the first hole has been drilled, we insert a key or a drill of the same diameter into it, this is done to fix it so that the die does not move. Let's move on to the next hole.
   
3. We drill the second die in the same way.
4. After drilling, we assemble the dies on the knife, using dowels or drills, to make sure all the holes match.
   
5. Then, attaching alternately the dies to the knife with the help of dowels or drills and clamps, we outline the contour of the handle along the contour of the knife. It is advisable to mark the handle with a small indent, 1 - 2 mm, for further processing.
6. After marking, we cut out the handle with a jigsaw-electric jigsaw or grind it on a grinding wheel, in extreme cases, a file in your hands.
   
7. Dowels are ready. To make the homemade knife look aesthetically pleasing, we will not rivet the keys, but glue them. To do this, we make chaotic cuts on the dowels with an engraving machine or a file, in which the glue will solidify and seize. At the ends of the dowels, we remove the inclined chamfer under 450.
   
8. Since after gluing it will be inconvenient to process the cheeks of the stop, we finish them and polish them with emery.
9. We carefully grind the halves of the handle on the sandpaper from the inside so that they fit snugly when glued to the plane of the knife shank.
10. Before gluing, we make the last test assembly.
11. Gluing itself is carried out according to the instructions for the glue. The assembly order is as follows, lubricate inside one half, insert the dowels smeared with glue into it, put a knife on them, and then the greased second half.
    Clamp the assembled handle in a vise and remove excess squeezed glue. We leave the clamped handle for a day.
12. After the glue hardens with the help of files, emery, a grinding wheel, and so on, we finally form, grind and grind the knife handle.
    
    
    
13. When the handle is fully polished, it is time to impregnate. It is best to impregnate the tree with linseed oil. You can buy it at the artist's shop, they breed it oil paints.
    The handle is kept in oil from three days to a week. The process can be accelerated by boiling the handle in oil for a couple of hours, but you need to strictly monitor the temperature, otherwise the glue may leak.
    
14. Then the handle should dry out at natural temperature for about a month, during which time the oil will polymerize, and the wood will harden and become immune to moisture.
15. After drying, the handle is finally polished with a soft cloth.

Sharpening for beginners

Before talking about sharpening a hunting knife, it must be recalled that homemade knives made from the metals recommended in the article are very difficult and take a long time to sharpen, since the alloy steels used have high hardness. This must be remembered when using the knife for other purposes.

Now about the sharpening itself. At home, knives are sharpened on special whetstones. Such stones are ceramic (the cheapest and most common), diamond, natural and from Japanese sea stones. The principle of sharpening on them is approximately the same, so in the future, by default, we will talk about the most common, ceramic grindstone.
In order to sharpen a knife with high quality, it is desirable to have either two whetstones of different grain sizes, or, which happens more often, grindstone the sides of which have different grain sizes. For the convenience of sharpening, the size, or rather the length, of the stone should be greater than the length of the knife blade.

It is advisable to sharpen the knife with both hands, so it is advisable to place the grindstone on a separate board, fixing it either in a recess specially cut out for this, or with the help of six nails driven in on the sides.
Knife sharpening begins on the roughest stone. At this stage, the grindstone can not be wetted. We place the stone on the table arbitrarily, the main thing is that it is convenient for you to sharpen on it.

The whole process of sharpening consists in giving the edge of the blade an acute-angled shape. When doing it, you need to remember a few basic rules:

• you need to choose the optimal angle of sharpening the knife and stick to it throughout the entire process;
• the knife is driven along the stone with the blade forward, as if cutting off a thin layer from it;
• in one movement, you need to carry out the entire edge of the blade for uniform sharpening;
• the edge of the blade must always be perpendicular to the direction of travel;
• each next time the blade must be turned over and held on the other side so as not to shift the center of the bevel of the blade;
• movements should be smooth, without pressure;
• it is better to sharpen both sides with a unidirectional movement, either towards oneself or away from oneself, since the movement of the hand away from oneself is always worse and weaker than the movement towards oneself.

Now with regard to the angle of sharpening. It can be from 450 to 300, in the first case the knife will keep sharpening longer, in the second it will be sharper. It is better to sharpen a hunting knife exactly under 300, this is easy to achieve, just when sharpening the knife, guide it as if you were cutting a thin slice of butter or cheese.

After you have screwed in the initial sharpness by deducing the angle of the edge of the blade, you can move on to a stone of less dispersion. It is advisable to periodically moisten it with water so that the edge of the blade slides better, and metal dust does not clog pores.
You can finally sharpen the blade to a mirror shine and razor sharpness by straightening it on an old leather belt with GOI paste. main feature editing with GOI paste is that the knife is led back to the direction of the blade, i.e. butt forward.

Making a scabbard (case) from leather

One of the necessary accessories of a hunting knife is a scabbard. They are needed to protect the blade from dulling, and everything around from cuts and damage to things.

You can make a homemade sheath yourself at home, from a small piece of leather about 3 mm thick.

For this, in addition to the skin, you will need:

• scissors;
• sheet thick paper for template;
• pen;
• an awl (it can be replaced by a sharpened nail or cloves);
• small cloves and a hammer;
• universal glue;
• fork;
• paraffin candle;
• fine emery or grinding machine;
• kapron thread and one or two large needles;
• pliers;
• button closure;
• wax or cream.

The procedure for making a cover will be as follows:

1. We make a template. Having attached the blade of the knife to a sheet of paper, we circle it along the contour.
   Then, around this contour with a centimeter indent, draw another contour, it will be the main one. Cut out the template along the outer contour. Separately, we cut out a T-shaped part for the fastener, the width of the straps of which is about 20 mm, we measure the length of the straps by the handle of the knife.
2. We mark the details on the skin. Having attached the template to the skin, we circle the part for one side of the scabbard, then moving the template to the side by 5 - 8 mm we circle only one side to get the part on the half of the insert.
   Then, turning the template over, we repeat the steps, outlining the second side and the second half of the insert. Attach and outline the T-shaped part of the fastener.
   
3. We take scissors and carefully cut out all the details from the leather.
   
4. Having attached to the knife, we try on all the details for a match.
   
5. We rub the ends of the insert on the clasp with paraffin candles, and then grind them on emery.
   
   
   
6. We attach the fastener to one half, and with the help of an awl and carnations, we outline and punch holes for the thread, in two rows.
   
7. We sew on the fastener, the thread can be pre-lubricated with paraffin.
   
8. For the convenience of subsequent stitching, we glue the parts together. We cut out a part from the template along the contour of the blade itself. We put this part on the half of the scabbard and coat it with glue around it so that the glue does not crawl out of the inserts. We glue according to the instructions on the tube. Lubricate and glue the inserts.
   
9. At the tip of the scabbard, between the inserts, we cut a groove for ventilation.
   
10. Glue the other half. We put the sheath under the press for a while for high-quality gluing.
    
11. We check how the knife enters and sits.
    
12. On the emery we process the edges of the scabbard.
    
13. With the help of a fork, drawing two prongs along the edge of the scabbard, we outline the contour for stitching. With a fork, we mark the places of the holes for the thread.
    
14. If you want, you can get confused by cutting through with front side scabbard groove for the thread so that it is flush with the skin. In this case, it will then need to be polished with wax or cream in the same color as the scabbard.
    
15. We punch holes for the thread with an awl.
    
16. We sew the cover. You can sew with one thread, or with two threads, threading them into the holes one at a time.
17. Attach a button fastener.
    
    
    
18. Finally we grind and polish the scabbard with wax or cream.
    

The scabbard is ready.

Knives have firmly entered into use not only housewife, but also people involved in extreme leisure activities and active recreation: fishing, tourism, hunting, etc. Of course, today you can buy knives of the highest quality with the most diverse forms of blade and handle, but all of them will not replace a knife made by yourself. We will talk about what knives are and how to make them yourself in our article.

Types of knives

There is a whole branched classification table of knives based on their functional orientation.

Among them are:

Requirements for knives

A good knife should not only have an attractive appearance, but also meet certain requirements. First, the knife must retain its sharpness over a long period of use for its intended purpose.
Secondly, the blade must be hard.

Thirdly, the knife in the hands should lie comfortably and tightly so as not to provoke the appearance of corns and not slip out of the hands during use.
Fourthly, the length of the knife blade must match or slightly exceed the cutting area, which will make the use of such a knife safe.
Fifth, the knife is best stored in a case or sheath. Sheath for a knife, as well as a sheath for a knife, can also be made by hand.

Hardening metal at home

Let us dwell in more detail on how to make a knife with your own hands. There are several options for making knives, the main ones being cold and hot forging.

The second method is traditional, but technically it is more difficult to perform, so we will focus on the first one.
The material for making a knife can be an old garden tool, springs, a file, etc. A knife from a spring is made using the same technology as a knife from a file, and a knife from an old garden tool, so we will consider in detail the algorithm for making a knife from one material. Let it be a file.

Before you start making a knife, make sure you have everything you need for this. You will need a file directly, (or scissors), a hammer, a drill with a drill for metal, a knife sharpening machine (you can use it). Stock up on everything you need, then get to work.
First of all, it is necessary to harden the metal from which the knife will be made. To do this, it is necessary to heat the oven (or flood the furnace) to a temperature of 500 ... 650 degrees and place the metal there for 5-6 hours. After that, without removing the workpiece from the oven (furnace), allow it to cool.

The hardening was done, it is necessary to leave the metal so that it is not brittle. To do this, the same oven is brought to a temperature of about 200 degrees and the hardened metal is placed there for 1 ... 1.5 hours. The workpiece should cool down in the same place.

Making a knife from a file

Hardened metal? Let's start making a knife. Everything is simple here:

As you can see, the process of making a knife with your own hands is not so complicated and accessible to everyone.

Most hunters agree that, in addition to a gun, it is necessary to have a knife when hunting. Its purpose is very different: for carcass cutting and protection from the attack of the beast, for various chores - chopping firewood and branches, building a hut, cooking, making other tools and self-defense. Thus, taking into account the functions performed, it can be extremely difficult to purchase a universal knife in a store. But each hunter can build a hunting knife with his own hands, taking into account all individual requirements.

hunting knife

The manufacture of a hunting knife is not available to everyone, because it is necessary to take into account a number of its features. The hunting dagger is a weapon with a short blade. The handle is separated from the blade by a limiter that allows you to protect your hand during a strike. The weapon is designed to cut rather than stab, so its blade is curved upwards with a large curvature of the cutting edge to make long cuts in one motion. The shank and the blade are a single whole, while only the cutting edge remains sharp, and the second part of the blade is blunt - this is the butt.

The blade is equipped with special grooves that give it rigidity and reduce its weight. Its length is usually 12-15 cm, and its width is 2.5-3 cm. Stainless steel is used to make the dagger. carbon steel grade 65G, tool steel grade P6M5 is also often used. You can learn how to make a hunting knife with your own hands below.

Do-it-yourself hunting knife: video

Before you make a hunting knife, you need to develop detailed drawing all his structural elements. The drawing will help determine the shape and size of the blade, handle, limiter, and scabbard.

The manufacturing process at home includes several stages, the complexity of this process can be estimated after watching videos and photos.
First of all, you need to decide on the shape, size of the knife, for this, sketch a sketch on paper, thus creating a detailed drawing.

Hunting knife sketch

The choice of material. To make a homemade hunting knife, it is not necessary to have a R6M5 steel bar on hand. You can use the items that are made from it: these are cutters, cutters, hacksaw blade. Best to use last option, namely, a blade from a pendulum saw for metal with a thickness of 2 mm, a length of 400-500 mm, and a width of approximately 30-40 mm. The material must be even. Please note that with a butt thickness of 2 mm and a blade length of 150 mm, such a homemade hunting knife will not be a melee weapon, since it complies with GOST R No. 51644-2000. For the manufacture of the handle, wood from birch, beech, maple, cherry, pear, mahogany is suitable.

After the material is selected, a sketch of the dagger must be applied to the hacksaw blade.

The workpiece is processed hacksaw, turning along the contour. It is important not to forget to make the transition from the blade to the semicircular shank. So that the material does not overheat, periodically you need to dip it in cool water.

Pre-turning the slopes is carried out on an emery machine with a coarse-grained tape.

Sanding the blade

The hole for the rivet is quite difficult to make with a drill, or a drill bit. But this can be done using the electrolysis reaction. The electrolyte is water diluted in it. table salt. To supply electricity, a 27-volt DC source is used. A circle is cut in place of the hole, the shank is placed in the electrolysis solution. After three hours, a hole is formed, which must be processed with a needle file.

Then you need to harden the steel of the knife. To do this, it is placed in the oven, then in oil and again in the oven. After that, the scale is removed on a coarse-grained sandpaper, the butt is processed and the required thickness of the cutting edge is formed. At this stage, it is also important to periodically cool the steel.

Processing the blade with sandpaper of less grit

Blade grinding is done with sandpaper, water and grinding. Processing is carried out in the opposite direction to the previous one.

The blade is polished with a trowel paste and a felt grinding wheel.

Sleeve manufacturing. A sleeve is cut out of brass or bronze by boring holes with a drill, put on the handle close to the blade. Before making the handle, a piece of leather is placed between it and the sleeve - it serves to prevent moisture from entering the place where the handle is attached to the blade, as well as to fix them more firmly.

How to make a hunting knife at home: making a handle

Handle making

A photo of do-it-yourself hunting knives suggests that most often the handles are made of wood. It fits comfortably in the hand, comfortable when used in the winter in the cold.

It is necessary to make a blank from a wooden block, on one side of which make an even cut to fit the bushing, and on the other, drill a cavity to accommodate the shank. It is also necessary to drill a hole for the rivet on one side. With the help of epoxy glue, the handle is mounted on the shank, a brass rod is inserted in place of the hole for the rivet, its excess part is cut off and soldered. The surface of the wooden handle is processed and polished. It can be oiled to protect the surface of the wood, or varnished. For the convenience and safety of carrying weapons, you can make a scabbard. In this case, you can use the same tree, for example, birch bark, or leather. At the same time, guides for the knife are formed inside the sheath, as well as a hole for water drainage, metal rings for attaching to the belt.

With such a knife, hunting will bring only pleasure.