Making A Small Neck Knife

I haven't had much to post because we have not completed any projects lately to speak of.  The last few times they have been here, my nephew and niece have been working on a couple of knives that they wanted to build.  My nephew finally finished his so I will show you how he did it.

Here are the rough beginnings.  He wanted to make a tiny, boot knife type of weapon so we took an old skill saw blade and drew out a pattern for him to cut with a jigsaw.  Then he took some red and black micarta that we had made and cut it into rough handle shapes.

Here are all the pieces along with the piece of PVC pipe that we will use for a sheath.

In this photo both knives have had their handles glued on with two part epoxy and are clamped up, waiting to dry.  The steel was too hard to drill a hole through so we did not install any pins to help hold the handles on better.  I hope that they stay.

Here is the tiny knife after it came out of the clamps and before it has been shaped by the belt sander.

Here the handle has been roughly shaped and the PVC pipe has been heated, flattened and molded to the shape of the little knife.  As you sand down through the different layers of micarta, you often get neat patterns of different colors.  On this particular knife, he messed up a little bit on the other side and ground down too deep with the sander in one spot, creating a groove that was too deep to polish out.  But this side looks kind of neat.

And here is the final product after it has been sanded with a finer grit and had three coats of clear polyurethane sprayed on it.  It makes it kind of shiny.  The PVC sheath has been painted the color he wanted, the holes drilled for the paracord, and the length has been adjusted so that the cord fits around his neck and positions the knife directly in the middle of his chest, right where he wanted it.  It fits in the sheath securely, even if you hold it upside down and shake it vigorously, the knife will not come out.  If you want the knife to come out, you must pull it out.  The sheath does not hang upside down, I am highly skeptical of upside down hanging knives.  All this little sucker needs is a final sharpening and it is good to go.

I didn't bother to measure it but did the tiny pig sticker is probably four or 4 1/2 inches long.  I know that the entire knife is a little bit crooked, the blade should have been sanded and polished more, the steel that it was made from is not really good for making knives and that overall, it looks kind of rough.  And it is.  But please keep in mind that he is 10 years old and he made the entire thing by himself according to his own specifications and wishes with only verbal input and guidance.  He is proud of the finished product and he should be.  I'm proud of him for sticking with it and completing what he started.  And he learned a lot in the process.  He now knows how to operate a drill press, a scroll saw, a belt sander, a grinder, he knows what different types of files are for and he knows what different grits of sandpaper are used for.  That is what I call a win win situation.

Cool project.  I think his sister may be finished with her knife sometime in the next couple of days.

If you want to know how to make a PVC neck knife sheath, then watch this video.  It is how I learned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3oV2rrymUo&feature=watch_response


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