Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Making A Sawzall Knife

My little nephew has a Remington 597 22 rifle. It has a hollow stock and he wanted to put some items in it that could prove to be useful one day.  So one day when I was at Home Depot I bought a few sawzall blades and presented him with one of them.




See?  I figured that it would be a good little project to keep him occupied and out of trouble, for a little while at least.  This is a metal cutting blade, 6 inches or so long.






He drew out a pattern with a magic marker, then went out to the shop to do some grinding.  This is when a life lesson was learned from him, me, and everyone else that was present.  And what might this lesson be?

Do Not Put Old Rags Or Other Flammable Materials Anywhere Near A Grinder!  Ever!

Unbeknownst to us some one had put three old rags behind the large grinder that he was using.  They were out of sight and would have been out of mind if it weren't for the fact that after a couple of minutes of grinding there was smoke coming up, even when he turned the grinder off.

This did not seem to be a good thing so an investigation was launched.  A smoldering rag was soon produced, tossed to the floor and stomped out.

Wouldn't it really suck to finish your grinding job, close up your shop for the night and then come out the next morning to discover you no longer possess a grinder, tools, or anything remotely resembling a shop building?

  Then two more rags were removed.  Good deal.  Let the grinding commence.

So it did.  And soon a masterpiece emerged.



This shows you before and after. A lot of the saw teeth along the top of the blade were left, so that he could still could metal or other things if he wanted to..  Next it was time for some form of handle.  Something lightweight, simple, and hopefully something that could be used all by itself for a different purpose።



We scrounged up some wire, he tested it and declared it unbreakable and that was that.  15 feet of wire that could be used to make snares or to fasten this blade to a shaft for a spear were wrapped around the handle.  The blade already had one hole at the end and we tried to make another at the front of the handle section but our drill bit would not penetrate.  This blade is made of pretty good steel and should hold a decent edge..



                                    


He finished it off by wrapping it with enough electrical tape so that he could get a decent hold on it and it felt good in his hand.  The little tip of metal exposed at the end of the handle could be used as a screwdriver blade so he left it alone instead of grinding it off.  All it needs is final sharpening and then it's ready to go into his rifle.  Altogether it was probably a 45 minute project.





Here is a link to another guy that uses different sawzall blades to make different types of knives.  Some of them at least, he put them in the oven to temper them, making the steel even harder.  He has some neat ideas

http://www.m4040.com/Survival/DollarSurvivalKnife/Dollar_Survival_Knife.htm



3 comments:

  1. " The blade already had one hole at the end and we tried to make another at the front of the handle section but our drill bit would not penetrate."
    Put a big ass C clamp just ahead of where you want the second hole, heat the area you want to drill with a propane torch, let it cool, drill your hole.

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