Curved Hunter

Finished a hunting knife this week:

I made it in the process of showing my apprentice Otto how to make a knife.  The blade is 4.5" long and it's 9.5" overall.  It's made from 3/16ths 1084.  I had two main goals for the knife (besides showing Otto what to do):
First, I wanted to explore the handle shape.  The downward curve and the two partial circles leading up to the blade are what makes the shape interesting to me.  It makes it comfortable to hold and gives two distinct hand positions for holding it.  Having the index finger in the partial circle closest to the edge and your thumb on the back of the blade gives great control for small cuts.

Second, I wanted to test out the pin press I built.  It's basically a 12 ton hydraulic jack in a square frame with two dies that down to 1/4" circles.  The bolster on this knife was soldered into place, then I drilled a 1/8" hole through the center of it, tapered both sides with a pin reamer, put a brass pin in the whole, and crushed it with the pin press so it filled out the hole.  You could do this with a hammer, but the pin press has so much more force that the seams between the pin and the bolster become invisible.  It's pretty awesome.

I also got my seams around the handle much closer to perfect on this knife than the last full tang I did.  Still not perfect, but you have to look really closely to see the gaps.

The wood on the handle is caramelized, stabilized maple burls from my brother's wood pile, again.  It's amazing how much great handle material is in people's wood piles when you start looking for it.  I'm also very happy that I invested in a stabilizing set-up.  It cost a few hundred to set up and the acrylic is $100 a gallon, but stabilized wood runs $30-$40 for a single handle so the payback point comes up really fast (10 knives).  I get about 50 handles per gallon of acrylic.

I plan to evolve this design some more.  I want to do it again with a smaller clip in the blade so there is more room for your thumb, and I want to do file work on the back for better grip.