One knife to rule them all ...

[Ds J]

Nope, not seriously.

Basically I want to enquire about designs and ideas for a general purpose and hunting knife.

Wat het julle wat lekker werk, en wat is daar wat net kwaad maak?

Ek doen moeite om my af tyd konstruktief in te rig: maak meubels, doen herstelwerk, ens. Wanneer die volgende paar projekte afgehandel is wil ek graag vir elkeen van my kinders n goeie kamp/jagmes maak.

Is a thick blade necessary? Most of our best / handiest / most used kitchen knives have 2mm to 3mm thick blades. Easier to sharpen, lighter to work etc.

What handle design works well, and how large should it be?

Blade crosscut, shape and size? I am all in favour of a longer, slender blade with general design of a clip point bowie. Blade length: somewhere between 5 to 7 inches. My edc knives are a Morakniv Companion which is great for edc work, bit terrible for kitchen work, the folder is a Spyderco Resilience handle with a deep bellied, almost speer point custom blade. This knife is truly versatile.

Which handle material? The current consideration is to make textured bone handles.

[oafpatroll]

This is my 'one fixed blade knife'. I got it an unfinished state without a sheath. I believe it's forged from a roller bearing and it holds an edge well without being impossibly difficult to touch up.

It goes everywhere in the field with me and doesn't get babied like most of the rest of my fixed blades which are about as useful as jewellery because I can't bear to mar them. 

[oafpatroll]

I am all in favour of a longer, slender blade with general design of a clip point bowie. Blade length: somewhere between 5 to 7 inches. 

While being a bit longer and thicker in the blade than your recipe this Muela Scorpion that I also got minus a sheath is close-ish. 

[Treeman]

Looks good, one thing.
Works good another thing.
2nd knife I like, first knife will work well, but not as sexy 

[oafpatroll]

Looks good, one thing.
Works good another thing.
2nd knife I like, first knife will work well, but not as sexy 

Damn straight. The first one is a beater and it works very deliciously. The second one is a swim suit model and hasn't done an honest days work in it's life.

[Ds J]

Looks good, one thing.
Works good another thing.
2nd knife I like, first knife will work well, but not as sexy 

Looks good, one thing.
Works good another thing.
2nd knife I like, first knife will work well, but not as sexy 

Damn straight. The first one is a beater and it works very deliciously. The second one is a swim suit model and hasn't done an honest days work in it's life.

A guard on a working knife is almost always in the way. It looks so good on a bowie, but the feeling subsides within minutes when one does serious work.

[oafpatroll]

Re the question on handle material, I'm a fan of micarta type scales for their impermeability, durability and grippiness. I made an experimental batch from cotton canvas and some old fibreglass resin I had left over and was very chuffed with the result. It works easily and when sanded to 100 grit or less has a fantastically grippy surface even when wet.

I plan a do over with canvas from some rottten old webbing and epoxy resin. Want it for rescaling a chopper style knife I made 20 years ago which has seen so much use that the wooden handle is disintegrating. Will also try my hand at grips for a revolver and a pistol that i use for sport shooting.

[janfred]

What do you use to vacuum all the air out?

[oafpatroll]

What do you use to vacuum all the air out?

I squeezed it and the excess resin out with a jury rigged press/form made of formica covered chipboard covered with cellophane. Leaves it dimensionally accurate with parallel sides etc which is handy.   

[janfred]

On the airrifle forum was a guy making knives. He made a vacuum chamber that he placed the resin impregnated canvas in. The idea is to draw the entrapped air out of the canvas until the it stopped making bubbles. When breaking the vacuum, the resin is then sucked into the canvas. After that, the resin-impregnated canvas was placed in a press until hard.

Apparently the above procedure makes a more dense micarta with very little, if any, entrapped air.

[oafpatroll]

On the airrifle forum was a guy making knives. He made a vacuum chamber that he placed the resin impregnated canvas in. The idea is to draw the entrapped air out of the canvas until the it stopped making bubbles. When breaking the vacuum, the resin is then sucked into the canvas. After that, the resin-impregnated canvas was placed in a press until hard.

Apparently the above procedure makes a more dense micarta with very little, if any, entrapped air.

I'm sure it would but the stuff I made was so solid and bubble free that I couldn't justify the effort and expense of setting up for vacuuming to make knife scales or pistol grips. If it was to make bits for a drone or something of that sort I'd be more inclined to go that route.

If you thoroughly saturate the textile submerged in a container then place it in the form and roll it with a fibreglass consolidating roller before clamping it up you get something that is very consolidated. I suspect where people may get issues is from placing the textile in the form dry and trying to wet it out in situ.

If there were pinholes present on the surface I'm pretty sure that a paste of sanding dust and resin would make for an invisible repair.

[Againstthegrains]

In my mind, general purpose means average at everything. A bit like asking who won Olympic gold at the decathlon. Nobody knows, nobody cares. But everyone knows Hussein Bolt. In my mind it would have to be two knives. A small light pocket knife: folder with a gut hook for carrying in the field to field dress an animal. The second is the Victorinox 18cm slaughter knife to skin, debone and work the carcass. Those two with a suitable knife sharpener are indispensable to me as a hunter/butcher.

Save the hard wearing general purpose knife for the Zombie apocalypse

[Ds J]

In my mind, general purpose means average at everything. A bit like asking who won Olympic gold at the decathlon. Nobody knows, nobody cares. But everyone knows Hussein Bolt. In my mind it would have to be two knives. A small light pocket knife: folder with a gut hook for carrying in the field to field dress an animal. The second is the Victorinox 18cm slaughter knife to skin, debone and work the carcass. Those two with a suitable knife sharpener are indispensable to me as a hunter/butcher.

Save the hard wearing general purpose knife for the Zombie apocalypse

You have a point, which is why I edc two knives: a large deep bellied  folder (Spyderco Resilience with a replaced blade) and a small fixed blade (Morakniv). With these two I seldom feel undergunned and outknived, except when it comes to dedicated  food preparation and meat processing.

These two have done all that one needs to do in the field, camp, kitchen, office etc. Why then the need for a general purpose/hunting knife? Maybe sentiment? In a small manner of speaking, yes, but there is something more at stake.

This basic design (https://flic.kr/p/2q38Rpo) is an upgrade after several experiments and can do basically anything one can wish it to do, except for chopping wood . It is a light and handy knife, easy to sharpen and carry, wonderful in the kitchen and suited for most tasks. A slightly rounded belly at the tip would be an advantage when skinning. 

[oafpatroll]

That's a very cool design Ds J. The finger gap beind the choil especially makes it usable as a precisely controllable cutting tool. The closer your index finger and thumb can be brought together on the tool the more precisely you can conroll it.

[Ds J]

That's a very cool design Ds J. The finger gap beind the choil especially makes it usable as a precisely controllable cutting tool. The closer your index finger and thumb can be brought together on the tool the more precisely you can conroll it.

Thanks very much, and yes, I always scoffed at the finger gaps of the really old knives until I worked with one. Now I almost always design a knife with it.

This ( https://flic.kr/p/2oSsXx2 ) is the design of my folder in rough shape. It cuts bread for lunch boxes, skin animals, trim nails etc. At 11cm cutting edge, the blade is just those 5-8cm too short for regular kitchen duty.