My knife builds

[rifletuner]

Been a busy few weeks getting knives finished for the Melbourne knife show. Its the local one and was the first show I ever attended in 2024, so a bit of a favourite for my son and I. Last years Melbourne show was slow, and with the economy no better this year, plus the fuel prices, I was apprehensive going into this years show.

But it totally surprised, and was already our best show by the end of Saturday. We were pretty happy going into Sunday, which is always a slower day. So we were thinking if we could sell another knife or two, that wold be great. Well, in another surprise, we sold as many knives Sunday as we did Saturday. So far and away our best show ever. A nice bonus was that 5 of the knives sold were made by my son, so that was a real boost for him.

Anyhow, this is a knife I finished a few days before the show. It is my standard hunter pattern, but using a new handle material that I hadn't tried before, so it was a bit of an experiment. Its called Grip-X, which they describe as "revolutionary rubber and resin composite designed for maximum grip, durability, and resilience". And the particular one I ordered is luminous. The knife got a lot of interest at the show, and sold late Sunday morning. A guy with his teenage daughter did a few passes around the tables - the daughter was keen on this knife, and in the end they bought it.

The blade is 3.5mm Nitro V stainless with a full flat grind. The handle is a tapered tang, with grip-x and black liners, stainless Loveless bolts & a stainless lanyard tube.

 

[rifletuner]

This is a knife I just finished off before the show, but I have been working on it for 12 months on and off. I bought a piece of CPM Cruware at the start of 2025. Its super tough tool steel and I wanted to try it. Its an "almost stainless" steel, but makes a very tough knife.

I did what I always do, which is to profile the knife and drill holes, then heat treat the blade. Once the heat treat is done, I grind the rest of the knife. Normally, I will get 3-4 knives ground off one ceramic belt. Well this steel is so abrasion resistant, I used up 3 new ceramic belts by the time I had the knife fully ground.

While I was tapering the tang, I slipped and pushed my thumb into the edge of a 36 grit belt which was ripping along at about 75% power. **** did that hurt. This photo was about a week after I did it.

At that stage, I put it aside for a few months. As the 2026 show got closer, I decided to finish it off for the table. I would normally hand sand steel to 600 grit, but because this steel is so abrasion resistant, I only took the blade to 220 grit. It would have added about another day of hand sanding to finish it to my normal level. I was originally planning to use some waterbuck horn for the handle, but I screwed up drilling the holes for the pins. So I had to scrap that handle and use something else. But I did manage to get it done before the show, and in an odd (to me at least) situation, another knife maker with a table at the show bought it on Saturday afternoon.

The steel is 4mm CPM Cruware - a steel not commonly found in Australia. The blade is a semi skinner pattern with a full flat grind. The handle is a tapered tang with stabilised Scandinavian birch, blue G10 liners, stainless Loveless bolts and lanyard tube. The photos were taken the evening before the knife show, so apologies for the poor lighting.

 

[BBob]

The blade is a semi skinner pattern with a full flat grind. The handle is a tapered tang with stabilised Scandinavian birch, blue G10 liners, stainless Loveless bolts and lanyard tube.

Awesome looking knife. It’s got great flowy lines.

 

[rifletuner]

Awesome looking knife. It’s got great flowy lines.

Thanks mate

 

[RWH80]

This is a knife I just finished off before the show, but I have been working on it for 12 months on and off. I bought a piece of CPM Cruware at the start of 2025. Its super tough tool steel and I wanted to try it. Its an "almost stainless" steel, but makes a very tough knife.

I did what I always do, which is to profile the knife and drill holes, then heat treat the blade. Once the heat treat is done, I grind the rest of the knife. Normally, I will get 3-4 knives ground off one ceramic belt. Well this steel is so abrasion resistant, I used up 3 new ceramic belts by the time I had the knife fully ground.

While I was tapering the tang, I slipped and pushed my thumb into the edge of a 36 grit belt which was ripping along at about 75% power. **** did that hurt. This photo was about a week after I did it.

At that stage, I put it aside for a few months. As the 2026 show got closer, I decided to finish it off for the table. I would normally hand sand steel to 600 grit, but because this steel is so abrasion resistant, I only took the blade to 220 grit. It would have added about another day of hand sanding to finish it to my normal level. I was originally planning to use some waterbuck horn for the handle, but I screwed up drilling the holes for the pins. So I had to scrap that handle and use something else. But I did manage to get it done before the show, and in an odd (to me at least) situation, another knife maker with a table at the show bought it on Saturday afternoon.

The steel is 4mm CPM Cruware - a steel not commonly found in Australia. The blade is a semi skinner pattern with a full flat grind. The handle is a tapered tang with stabilised Scandinavian birch, blue G10 liners, stainless Loveless bolts and lanyard tube. The photos were taken the evening before the knife show, so apologies for the poor lighting.

That is beautiful, what does something like that cost?

 

[rifletuner]

I have been making variations on the Canadian belt knife for a couple of years and like the design a lot. I have tweaked the original in a few ways over the years and think they work as well as the original. But recently on here there was discussion on "improved" versions of the CBK, and someone said basically "just make the original". It got me thinking and I decided to give that a go because the original really is a classic.

In my opinion the one area for improvement on the original is the handles. They are typically mass produced slabs with minimal shaping, so I made mine with a much more rounded handle and a palm swell. But otherwise they are pretty authentic to the original.

Some time ago, Cold Steel did a cheap copy of the CBK, and I wondered if there was much between the two versions. So I made 2 very similar knives - one of each shape. I had these on my table at the Melbourne show. They got a lot of interest, but neither sold.

Both are 2.5mm Nitro V stainless. The blade is 4 inches with a full flat grind. With the belly on the blade, the actual cutting edge is about 4.5". One set of handles is black micarta with G10 liners and the other is camo G10 with G10liners. Both have stainless Loveless bolts and lanyard tubes. The micarta handled knife is just slightly thicker than the G10 version just to allow for individual choice on what suits peoples grip better.