Firesteels

I've been looking around at some of the firesteels (Swedish Firesteel, Blast Match, Metal Match, etc.) and even though I've already got a few of these I thought I'd have a go at making a couple of my own.
I bought some ferrocerium rods from an importer in Queensland and turned up a couple of handles on the bench grinder - wood for one and micarta for the other. I think they came out rather well considering it only took about 5 minutes to make each one, with the exception of the time it took for the Araldite to dry.

A few Sheaths

A few months back I'd been thinking for a while about making some sheaths - or more to the point, replacing the nylon sheath that came with my Winchester knife, with a homemade leather sheath.
I've done a little leatherwork in the past so the learning curve wasn't that great. That said, there's still a lot I need to learn and practice makes perfect.. eventually.
I also made a Scandinavian style sheath for a small damascus blade that I picked up at a show.

Mini Skinners

I was pretty happy with my first attempt at a skinner so I made a few mini versions. I thought one of these would be good to throw in with my camping kit, as a sort of emergency knife for 'light' bushcraft needs.
I decided to make these in two different styles.
The paracord wrapped one is a drop point and the other (hoochie cord wrapped) has a more traditional trailing-point spine.
I also chose to give both knives a smooth, seamless bevelled edge, and left out a ricasso to give a longer blade length that could start a cut from either the point or rear of the blade.

A new Knife

I thought I'd try my hand at some cord wrapping, so I decided to make a knife to practice on.
I didn't have a skinner so it seemed the perfect choice. I didn't really like the finish and was getting a bit bored with the hand sanding so I treated it with gun blue - so it's now got a nice gun-metal grey finish.

The First Knife

Well, I've officially made my first knife. It's father's day today and I've just handed it over to Dad for his gift.
I knew when I started making it that I wanted to give it to Dad - just seemed like the right thing to do. It's not the best knife I'm ever going to produce - with practice I'm sure I'll get much better - but I can only make one ''first'' knife so I wanted Dad to have this one.

It's made from (what I believe to be) O2 steel and I used stock removal for the process. The handle is redgum and the guard is stainless.

Had a hell of a time making the thing - I can say I've learned a lot of lessons about grinding and drilling in the process - like, don't use a grinding wheel on the guard once it's on the knife. The thing fell off several times because the heat kept melting the epoxy. I know now to either shape the entire thing first or just use the slack band of the belt grinder.