Skinning Knives (pics)

[Ken Massingale]

Some friends have a Hunting/Fishing supply store and I did a couple of skinning knives for them to stock to see if they have a market. I ordered 2 Laredo Skinner kits from Texas Knives. If I do more I will not get the kits, only blades. I used a piece of curly Walnut for one knife and Padauk for the other.
The blades are treated to Rockwell C 58/59, 9" overall length, blade length is 4 3/4", 1" wide and 5/32" thick.
Question for the hunters. What is a ballpark price range for a knife with a blade of this quality?





First, using 3/8" thick stock trace the tang onto the stock and rough cut the scale out.



then one at a time use the holes in the tang to drill the holes for the brass pins. Then using epoxy glue and clamp the scales to the tang.



Rough sand to shape,



Then final sand/file/cuss to a decent looking and comfortable handle.







Thanks for looking.

k

[smc331]

Ken,

I don't think you can sell those - so just send 'em to me, and I'll see to it that they are disposed of properly!

All kidding aside, those are absolutely gorgeous. You folks never cease to amaze me...

[cgallery]

I don't know what such knives sell for, but those are pretty amazing!

[TheRic]

No clue what they would sell for, but they sure do look nice!!

[gad5264]

Very nice looking set Ken.

[mater]

That is a nice set of knives Ken. Excellent work.

[JimD]

Ken,

I do a little hunting but I don't buy custom knives. You can buy what I think is a pretty nice factory knife starting around $50. Some even less. On the other hand, I have seen custom knives well over $100. The difference seems to be reputation mainly and possibly somewhat the steel and handle material. I checked out the source you cite and it seems like a good source of kits. They do not list a lot of information on the blades, however. For the high end knives I've seen they tell exactly what the material is.

Jim

[John Hunter]

Very nice.

[ragswl4]

Nicely done, Ken. I don't have a clue what the selling price should be. They are really nice, I love Padauk except the dust seems to bother me more that other wood.

[lcm1947]

I too have no clue as to the price especially now-a-days but back in my hunting days I owned a couple of pretty good knives. One similar to yours in that it was what I call a hunting knife. To me a skinning knife is much different than what you are showing. I always considered a skinning knife being short and wide especially towards the front of the blade. When skinning you really only use the first inch or two of the blade and it's kind of round like and like I said wide. Anyway I got away from what I was saying. One of the nicer ones I owned was a Puma. Very well thought of back in that period of time. The Puma ran in the neighborhood of $79.00 but that was God, what 30 years ago. Now Puma was supposed to be high quality steel and that's why so expensive. For that period of time $79.00 was a lot of money. Now-a-days I really couldn't tell you. Anyway I mainly just wanted to tell you that those are some fine looking knives. Nice job!

[Ken Massingale]

Thanks to all for the nice comments, it's appreciated.

Ken,

I checked out the source you cite and it seems like a good source of kits. They do not list a lot of information on the blades, however. For the high end knives I've seen they tell exactly what the material is.

Jim

Hi Jim,
All I found about the blade material is that it is 6A high carbon stainless steel, cryo treated to Rockwell C 58/59.A machinest friend says this is a good compromise hardness between being easy to sharpen and maintaining an edge.

One similar to yours in that it was what I call a hunting knife. To me a skinning knife is much different than what you are showing. I always considered a skinning knife being short and wide especially towards the front of the blade. When skinning you really only use the first inch or two of the blade and it's kind of round like and like I said wide.

I agree about the size/name. Although back when I was hunting all I had for skinning was my Buck pocket knife, I did see others using short fixed blades for skinning.

I'm not too concerned if they sell or not, I want one for a kitchen knife and the daughters have dibs on 2 more for the same use.

These are kinda like turning, quick gradification. About an hour each total time and it's done.
I forgot the finish. Natural Danish Oil and using the beal buffs with Tripoli, White Diamond then Carnuba wax.

Thanks again.

[lrogers]

Wow, those are beautiful.

[lcm1947]

Yeah I guess a skinning knife can be anything but that's just what I thought. They are truely nice looking though. If your daughters are married I don't know about giving them one until you see what the husbands think

[Brian G]

Very nice knives, Ken. Feral cats should be very nervous.

[JimD]

I do not think cyro treatment is worthwhile. I've seen technical articles on it and tests of rifle barrels and I do not think it does anything. It could be a selling feature, however, not everybody thinks what I think.

I agree that something near Rockwell 60 is a good hard knife blade. It doesn't tell you toughness, however. The other thing to watch our for is if you polish the blade you do not want to get it very hot or you may soften it. It has to be pretty hot, however. The edge is probably all you'd have to be careful with. Of the stainless steels ATS-34 and 440C are good materials. 420 is not so good. 440A and B are OK but not as good as 440C. Cold Steel likes 4116. Any of them could be made hard enough and would hold an edge but the better materials will be tougher at that hardness (less brittle) and thus hold up better. There is also a difference in how easy they are to heat treat (but if you get the blades properly treated and do not get them not enough to change it, you probably do not care).

I think knife handles would be a good way to use up small pieces of nice wood that I hate to throw away. Maybe I'll make one or more.

Jim