Knife Making

[W.R.Buchanan]

I have made literally huundreds of custom knives. this is what I carry everyday and I have had this one for 8 years now. It is called a Superknife and it is the most useful pocket knife I have ever owned. The clip on the side has prevented me from losing it, which is what happened to all of my other pocket knives.

Randy

[ADfields]

I have several beaver tail design knives. They are great for skinning, I'm a trapper and skin a lot. If you sharpen them all the way around remember they will cut on the back too, you only have to stop to sharpen half as often that way, use care or you will skin yourself, lol. Actually one of my favorite designs is the ulu. They are less hand fatiguing and great for large cutting and skinning tasks. My $.02. 10 ga

Can't beet an ulu for fleshing hides back at the house and they are great skinners also but a bit too specialized for me to pack in the bush with me. In the bush for field uses (cooking, eating, whittling, cutting ropes and skinning a critter once in a while) all I want is a 3 to 4 inch carbon steel drop point, a good little hatchet with an ulu shaped bit to one side and a hammer head the other, and a good Arkansas stone.

Ulu means “woman’s knife” in Yupik (Eskimo) here in Alaska where they are from. But women knife or not an ulu, properly sharpened from one side only is a heck of a good tool to have if you work on hides at all!

Now if you process meat for yourself you need some Victorinox knives, I don’t mean their Swiss Army line I mean their industrial knife line, that is all you see in slather houses and fish packing plants. They have thin flexible blades that hold an edge very well and indestructible molded non-slip plastic handles on white, black, or yellow. They are simply the best using knifes made, they don’t brake the bank to buy, and are the Snap-On of knives. The reason I stopped making knives about 15 years ago is I can’t make half as good a knife for twice the money worth of materials as I can buy Victorinox knives. They even make my favorite patterns, a 10” drop point butchering and an extremely curved blade skinner pattern . . . I like the black handles but the martial is the same no-slip (even when all slimy with fish guts) indestructible plastic in all the colors.
Victorinox knives