This is the fourth article in an occasional series of easy-to-build construction projects for the outdoors Man Cave.
An outdoors enthusiast can’t have too many knives. Over a lifetime spend in the woods and on the water, a good blade comes in handy for everything from filleting fish and butchering game, to preparing meals around the campfire.
Knives come in all shapes and sizes, and making one from parts is rewarding, and not overly difficult. Your effort will yield a handcrafted heirloom.
It doesn’t take a lot of specialized shop equipment to make a knife from parts, but yes, if you want to make a blade from scratch, it can get complicated and expensive. That’s a column for another day.
Man Cave Project No. 4
Today’s project is to assemble a paring knife and make a simple wooden cutting board.
Paring knives typically have an 7-inch overall length and about a 3 1/4-inch blade. A wooden cutting board is easy to make and its primitive charm never goes out of fashion (Photo by Art Lander Jr.)
Paring knives typically have about a 7-inch overall length and about a 3 1/4-inch blade. They are ideal for coring apples or cutting up onions, celery, potatoes, carrots, and venison chunks when cooking a stew at deer camp.
At home in the Man Cave while watching sports on TV, a paring knife comes in handy for slicing venison summer sausage and blocks of pepper cheese while snacking.
A wooden cutting board is easy to make and its primitive charm never goes out of fashion.
Materials
My paring knife has a stainless steel blade. Stainless steel holds it edge longer, resists staining, but is much harder to sharpen. Carbon steel blades are “softer,” so they may not hold their edge as long, but they can be made razor sharp with very little effort, using a quality sharpener.
Blade steel is a matter of personal choice. That’s part of the enjoyment of making a knife. You can build it from any parts you like, so it’s custom to your tastes.
Blades of all shapes and sizes are available online, from a number of knife supply companies, and e-Bay (search knife making supplies).
One of my favorites is Texas Knifemaker’s Supply (www.texasknife.com), which has a large number of blades of all styles, handle material (scales), finger guards (bolsters), epoxy, and rod stock (pins).
Knives come in all shapes and sizes, and making one from parts is rewarding, and not overly difficult. Your effort will yield a handcrafted heirloom. This Chef/Cook’s Blade, available from www.TexasKnife.Com , has an 8-inch blade and three 5/32-inch holes for pins, and sells for $29.95 (Photo Provided)
My paring knife has a handle made from curly maple, stained dark brown. The shiny stainless steel blade is accented by three 1/8-inch steel pins. I used finish nails for this project. They work fine and are cheaper than 1/8-inch pins (steel, brass or German silver), typically sold in 12-inch lengths.
The small cutting board measures 13 inches long, by 6 inches wide, and is 7/8-inch thick. It is made of walnut and has a 3/8-inch hole drilled through the handle.
Knives with wooden handles and wooden cutting boards should never be cleaned in a dishwasher. They much be washed by hand with warm, soapy water, then thoroughly dried. After a washing or two, use a light coat of food grade mineral oil to protect and preserve the wood’s finish.
Howard Products (www.howardproducts.com) Food Grade Mineral Oil is ideal for butcher blocks, cutting boards, wooden bowls and knives with handles made from highly-figured woods.
Tools
To make the paring knife handles (scales) I used a hand saw to cut two oversized pieces off a chunk of curly maple. A cordless drill was used to drill three 1/8-inch holes through the knife’s hand material, and the 3/8-inch hole through the cutting board’s handle.
I used a chainsaw to rough cut a plank off a dry, seasoned walnut log. Then a rough outline of the cutting board was drawn on the plank with a pencil, and cut out with a jig saw.
Two woodworking F-clamps were used to secure the handle material to the blade after the epoxy was spread, and the pins were inserted through the handle material and blade.
For more outdoors news and information, see Art Lander’s Outdoors on KyForward.
A file was used to shape the knife handle and the cutting board’s edges. I used sandpaper on a sanding block to smooth the final surfaces.
The knife handle was stained and sealed with linseed oil. A coat of food safe mineral oil was applied to the cutting board after final sanding.
Construction Tips
I cut the knife handle material (scales) a bit wider than needed because it’s easier to work with that way. Since I didn’t have a plane, I put a piece of new medium grit sandpaper on the bench top and rubbed one side of each piece of maple so that it would be flush, where it’s epoxied to the metal blade.
Then I placed the blade on the knife scale and traced the outline of its handle with a pencil, making sure to draw tiny circles on the wood where the scales would be drilled for the pins.
Drill the holes through the scales and insert the pins through one side. The pins should be much longer than the final profile of the knife handle. Once the epoxy dries and the clamps are taken off the knife handles, the excess length of the pins can be cut off with a hacksaw.
Use a quality two-part epoxy. Mix it up and spread it on the inside of the scales. Push the pins through the blade and out the other scale. Attach the clamps firmly and allow the epoxy to dry for 24 hours.
Once dry, cut off the pins sticking out of the knife handles.
Wrap the blade in masking tape and secure it in a padded bench vise. This protects the blades and enables you to file and sand the final profile of the knife handle.
Now you’ve made a knife from parts, and it probably won’t be your last.
Art Lander Jr. is outdoors editor for NKyTribune and KyForward. He is a native Kentuckian, a graduate of Western Kentucky University and a life-long hunter, angler, gardener and nature enthusiast. He has worked as a newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and author and is a former staff writer for Kentucky Afield Magazine, editor of the annual Kentucky Hunting & Trapping Guide and Kentucky Spring Hunting Guide, and co-writer of the Kentucky Afield Outdoors newspaper column.
