Hunting knives and related projects

[Von Gruff]

For this type of steel which is generally 1095.(or most other carbon steels) heating to non magnetic and soaking at that temp for a few minutes, is sufficient to do the job and an extendable pen magnet is ideal to test the blade while it is still in the fire. A quick touch to feel for this is all that is needed.



When the blade has reached the necessary heat I will hold it there for another 5 minutes and then quench in canola oil heated to 130degrees. To hold the oil an old fire extinguisher body was ideal. About 11 inches deep by 3 in dia it is enough for all but the longer blades that are getting into the specialist territory.

[Von Gruff]

I have been using all sorts of knives since I started work at 15 and was given a horrible big bellied skinning knife to kill the dog tucker and the house meat on the high country station. That led me to think through what I needed in a knife and then getting a decent knife for the job. I have been facinated with knives ever since.
As I have got older I have been very much more concerned about the kill being as fast and as efficient as is possible and while the way I do the job is right, the type of knife will make a difference to the efficiency and consequently the pain/distress of the animal. Because I have bottle fed my sheep from day olds lambs, they are very friendly by the time they are ready for the freezer at 15 - 18 months old. This is not a job I enjoy but they are for our table so I decided to make a knife that would do the job in the best way I could design it and in fact I used a 19th century british killing knife as a base for this pattern.
I started with an old slasher blade



It was not going to be large enough to get the full pattern from but I figured I could make it work.





With a bit welded on to fill out the pattern

[Von Gruff]

A bit more grinding and it was all set to go



I have finished up with a knife I feel will be about as good as can be got to do the job I have to do with it.



I was discussing the exact method of performing this job on another forum as some felt it was a step too far for them to do the kill with a knife, -- but they would happily pull the trigger from many yards distant. Unless there is a head shot or similar CNS hit, the killing is often much more protracted with a bullet than with the knife.

This is what I wrote to them

While I am right handed I do the killing with the knife in my left hand which makes the hold on the sheep more certain (in my case anyway) but to do it right handed lay the sheep on its left side with your right leg on the belly side and in front of the back legs to stop the kicking or any attempt to move. The left leg goes on the spine side at the base of the neck so that with your left hand under the mouth you can stretch the head round your shin to expose the throat. With the knife in hand and the thumb extended (in the case of the sheep having longer wool and the jaw bone not being visible) you can feel the point of the jaw so the knife point goes directly behind that. Through and out in one stroke, reverse the knife in hand and cut back through the spinal cord and the job is done. We owe it to the animals we kill to do it the quickest way possible and this is way quicker than many rifle shot kills.

This is the method I am advocating as the quickest way to kill an animal if it has to be done with a knife and why I designed the blade with the shape it has. The very sharp point to easily penetrate with the heel being wider to acentuate the cut as it goes through and by rotating the wrist outward the cut can be completed as the tip reaches the other side of the throat. It is like a single stroke that is quickly reversed for the cord cut. That is the reason for the handle shape being the way it is.
It is the reverse cut that severs the spinal cord that is the actual killer rather than the bleeding out. There will be multiple muscle spasms as the nerves continue to react but the animal is dead when the spinal cord is cut about a second after the first penetration of the knife point but generally less than 2 seconds after the initial penetration is done. It will take 12 seconds for an animal to bleed out from a heart-lung shot so in fact this way is much quicker and more certain.

[montana]

I like your angle iron pipe idea and pipes used to extend the pliar handles, very clever.

Using the old fire extinguisher is very similar to what I have done with used Cat oil and fuel filters.

I never would have thought of using ash as an insulator for annealing or other similar projects. I will try this.

If I remember correctly you should keep the metal in its "very high temp' around 1400 degrees for five minute or more when it becomes non magnetized before quenching. I could be wrong about this.

I have seen knife blades tempered with more heat applied to the cutting edge and gradually cooler to the spine. I was told this gives a better cutting edge with a stronger but more malleable blade. The harder the metal edge the longer it will hold an edge but harder to sharpen. I prefer a knife that will hold an edge to one that is easier to field sharpen and dulls quicker. I have heard pro and con for both.

[montana]

A bit more grinding and it was all set to go



I have finished up with a knife I feel will be about as good as can be got to do the job I have to do with it.



I was discussing the exact method of performing this job on another forum as some felt it was a step too far for them to do the kill with a knife, -- but they would happily pull the trigger from many yards distant. Unless there is a head shot or similar CNS hit, the killing is often much more protracted with a bullet than with the knife.

This is what I wrote to them

While I am right handed I do the killing with the knife in my left hand which makes the hold on the sheep more certain (in my case anyway) but to do it right handed lay the sheep on its left side with your right leg on the belly side and in front of the back legs to stop the kicking or any attempt to move. The left leg goes on the spine side at the base of the neck so that with your left hand under the mouth you can stretch the head round your shin to expose the throat. With the knife in hand and the thumb extended (in the case of the sheep having longer wool and the jaw bone not being visible) you can feel the point of the jaw so the knife point goes directly behind that. Through and out in one stroke, reverse the knife in hand and cut back through the spinal cord and the job is done. We owe it to the animals we kill to do it the quickest way possible and this is way quicker than many rifle shot kills.

This is the method I am advocating as the quickest way to kill an animal if it has to be done with a knife and why I designed the blade with the shape it has. The very sharp point to easily penetrate with the heel being wider to acentuate the cut as it goes through and by rotating the wrist outward the cut can be completed as the tip reaches the other side of the throat. It is like a single stroke that is quickly reversed for the cord cut. That is the reason for the handle shape being the way it is.
It is the reverse cut that severs the spinal cord that is the actual killer rather than the bleeding out. There will be multiple muscle spasms as the nerves continue to react but the animal is dead when the spinal cord is cut about a second after the first penetration of the knife point but generally less than 2 seconds after the initial penetration is done. It will take 12 seconds for an animal to bleed out from a heart-lung shot so in fact this way is much quicker and more certain.

I have never seen a sheep killed but lots of cows, chickens and other assorted animals including pigs which your knife design would work very well for. Killing anything is never fun but doing it in the quickest and humane way is always the objective. We had a steer when I was young that was more of a pet to me than farm animal. I did have a hard time eating him when he became of age. We had another steer who ran me through an electric fence that I enjoyed eating as much as a killer rooster I had daily fights with and got cut up by his spurs when I was 4 years old. He tasted especially good LOL.

[montana]

I forgot to ask, what the heck is a dog tucker?

[Von Gruff]

I forgot to ask, what the heck is a dog tucker?

Dog tucker is just the cull sheep that are not up to house meat that is for the dogs. Tucker is food so dog tuciker is dog food. Just one of the (many) New Zealand farm language uses.

[Von Gruff]

I like your angle iron pipe idea and pipes used to extend the pliar handles, very clever.

Using the old fire extinguisher is very similar to what I have done with used Cat oil and fuel filters.

I never would have thought of using ash as an insulator for annealing or other similar projects. I will try this.

If I remember correctly you should keep the metal in its "very high temp' around 1400 degrees for five minute or more when it becomes non magnetized before quenching. I could be wrong about this.

I have seen knife blades tempered with more heat applied to the cutting edge and gradually cooler to the spine. I was told this gives a better cutting edge with a stronger but more malleable blade. The harder the metal edge the longer it will hold an edge but harder to sharpen. I prefer a knife that will hold an edge to one that is easier to field sharpen and dulls quicker. I have heard pro and con for both.

I soak the blade at the non-magnetic heat for about five minutes but have read that you can burn the carbon out of the steel if it is too hot for too long.

Tempering is after the heat treat quench where the blade is taken to between 350 and 500 degrees depending on the steel type and the required finish rockwell hardnesss.
With my carbon steels I take them to 375degrees for two hours and then quench in water.
I think you may be taking about diferential hardening which is done in one of two ways. Either the blade is heated and using a long (rather than vertical) quench tank the blade is put into the tank with the top (spine side) 1/2 to 1/3 kept out of the oil so it cools rather than quenchs to give a hard edge with softer spine for the hard but tough blade that will take twisting or levering but this is more for a hard use bush, or tacticooooool type knife. The other way it is doen is with the clay covered top (spine) part of the knife so that it dosent quench as rapidy as the uncovered edge portion does so again there is the diferential hardening and when sanded to a higher degree and diped in an etching acid will show the lines of the differentially heated parts.
I have never had to sharpen a knife in the field so a slightly harder blade is fine by me. It may take a little more to get an edge but it will hold it through a numer of animals or at least what I need it to do in the field. I have never even taken sharpening gear away from the home base although I do have a touch up kit in the truck

[montana]

The process I witnessed went this way. The blades were put in a coal forge till red hot, then were hammer forged to 85% shape and then allowed to cool. The blades were then heated in the forge again but this time heated with the cutting edge towards the heat with the cutting edge hotter than the spline. They were then put into oil while stirring the oil until there was no smoke. They were then sanded to finish and then re heated with a torch to the spine until the blade was at the correct colors and dunked into ice water. Then they were highly polished and sharpened to a razor edge.

When I clean an elk or deer I split the pelvis and brisket to aid cooling and cleaner meat. A softer edge will dull especially if there are multiple animals to tend. I have seen hunters carry a small stone and sharpen their knives repeatedly through the process. My knives need none of this.

[Von Gruff]

The forging is something I have not been involved in as yet so the techniques that are used are not in my experience as all my knives are stock removal so your visuals on the process are more authorative.

Splitting the pelvis and brisket is something I dont do with the smaller animals as they are carried out with just the head and gut removed but broken down as soon as it is back at the truck so my on the hill knife use is way less demanding which explains why we have a different approach to the needs of a blade and in your situation I would want the same as you have indicated.

Like in this thread

http://www.65grendel.com/forum/showthread.php?11141-Goats-on-the-hill

I bone out the carcase on the rail but the shoulders are done on the little table and then the back legs are cut through at the joint and split with a saw so no need for heavy work with a knife. I havent split a brisket since I left the farming life in about '69.

[montana]

After shooting a deer or elk there is not the need to quickly skin unless cooling is a problem. Antelope is another thing. Antelope meat will get a gamey taste the longer the hide is left on so we skin them as soon as we are able. I have also noticed if antelope are killed quickly the taste is much better than if their adrenaline is put into high mode and they run for any distance after being shot. My family and I have always hunted for meat rather than sport so we tend to hunt for edibility rather than horns or bragging rights. We have better options for hanging game animals looking at your treeless landscape LOL. We set up tables made out of saw horses and plywood in our shop. We cover the plywood with wrapping paper and then everybody taking duty, dissecting, cutting, wrapping and filling freezers. After one hunting expedition it took us three days to cut up our elk and deer. We make steaks, ribs, roast and sausages. We boil the hearts in salt water which taste like some of the best sliced beef ever. We detach the legs after hanging and de-bone on a table using only thin filleting knives. I'm getting hungry thinking about this!

[Von Gruff]

The farrier dropped off another rasp the other day and it occured to me that the knife I "borrow" from the kitchen when I am wotking on the meat animals is the longer slicing knife so decided that I should have one of those as well.

I got the rasp annealed and headed up to the shed to make a start, which meant I needed to work through a pattern but that was a reasonably easy one as I used my camp knife and just tweaked the blade length and tip shape a bit. It will make for a 8 1/4 blade length with 12 3/4 overall.



Drilling a hole each end allows it to be screwed to a stool top and using the angle grinder, I can get rid of the majority of the teeth and bring it back to the dominant thickness of .185


Then it was on to scribing the pattern on and using the cutting wheel on the grinder to cut to within clean-up distance of the scribed lines. On the straight bits this is quite close but on the handle curves it leaves a bit to tidy up afterwards. Shaping is got closer with the angle grinder and then finished off with files on the curves and the belt grinder on the straighter bits


There was a bend in the blade from the annealing as I didn't have it propperly supported in the fire so after I got the shape sorted I did something I wouldn't have done if my wife was home. (She is visiting family at the other end of the country so I was safe from being seen doing it haha) I bought a stool into the kitchen where the fire is and put the blade back in to heat and with a thin scrap of wood on the stool top I placed the blade strategically and gave it a tap with the hammer and apart from the copious ammounts of smoke from the wood charring I had a straight blade again.

[Von Gruff]

With the bevels done it needed polishing back to 220 grit and a little kero helps doing this. I was able to grind in most of the bevel with my primitive set-up but had to finish it with draw filing so it did take a few hours to get all the scrathc marks out.

A simple walnut handle will suffice for this one so it is al ready for the heat treat now.

[Von Gruff]

Will call this one done now with the handle oiled so expect it will be the last oe for a while although I was asked to make one for my wifes son who has just bought a small rural property and would like one for his edc

[Von Gruff]

A knife for a friend.

I have been internet friends with a guy in Australia for a number of years and during that time we have helped each other out on a number of projects. Lately I was given some nice wood for knife handles and picked up some copper bar last time in the city so decided to make him a knife as a bit of a catch-up in the to and fro we have.
A good sized file to start with


This was the first time I had done copper bolsters but it goes so very well with the red gum burl handles that are fixed on with the copper pins.