As you may have read in our recent best neck knife review article, this handy little tool is a small knife worn using a cord around a person’s neck.
The blade provides personal protection due to its ease of access as well as multipurpose design. Having this knife on your neck is one of the greatest ways of ensuring that you do not go or stay somewhere especially in the wilderness without a cutting tool.
Even when having a small blade size, a quality neck knife will help you in performing many bushcraft tasks including skinning and making various feather sticks. In our discussion, we are going to discuss how you can make your neck knife using some steps.
How to make a neck knife
There are several steps that you must follow when making your neck knife. These steps are highlighted and discussed below.
Step 1: Materials and tools
Source for all the necessary materials and tools before starting the neck knife making process. The following are the materials and tools you require;
- Angle grinder which should have a metal band saw or cutoff wheel or metal band saw.
- Bench grinder
- Steel-cutting bit and drill.
- Belt sander or disc.
- Sharpening stone.
- Tool wax
- 550 paracord
- Plastic Sheet or Scrap Kydex. The old plastic Nintendo sleeves work nicely.
- Plastic tool handles dip
- Circular saw blade which is carbon Tempered. Avoid cheap stamped steel garbage.
- Super-glue
- Permanent marker.
- Gloves, dust mask and ear plugs
Step 2: Designing the Blade
You need a piece of paper to come up with a symmetrical blank design. Then complete the following:
- Fold the paper into two specifically for your temperate and draw a half profile of the desired blade blank.
- Cut the actual design out.
- When the cut blank design is unfolded, you will get a symmetrical temperate. When satisfied with the design, select a right spot or area on your saw blade.
- Super Glue the template on the surface of the saw blade. You can use a permanent marker to draw around the template to ensure that you remain with design map in case the paper comes out
Remember, the blade attached to your neck knife is the one that mostly determine the quality of the knife beside the handle and the sheath.
Step 3: Constructing and roughing of the blade
Now its time to get out the angle grinder. Get your gloves, dust mask, glasses as well as ear plugs and of course your angle grinder (which will need to have a cut-off wheel). Start working on the steel based on your design in step two.
At this stage you also need to remove material from the blade so as to ensure that less work will be involved during the final touches using the bench grinder.
Step 4: Cleaning the blade
- First, give the blade a good clean.
- To frequently quench the blade steel, you should have a jar of water around you.
- This process will prevent you from disrupting the blade steel temper.
- After cleaning, drill two holes at the profile center. The holes should also be drilled on the rear and front parts of the handle.
- Go ahead and smoothen the holes using Tapered stone or the Dremel stone.
- Let the blade rest on the both sides against a disc sander after removing any scratches.
Step 5: Making the neck knife handle
At first, you should determine which kind of material to use in making the handle. You can use wood, plastic or steel.
Gauge the size of the blade as well as your appropriate design. File the handle to form an appealing layout.
You can use the super glue or pins to attach the handle to the blade. After attaching the handle, you should wrap it for durability purposes.
Before wrapping the handle, I recommend that you apply oil bath on the blank. Use a tool wax to rub it down so as to guard against rusting and corrosion.
Step 6: Construction of the sheath and installation of neck lanyard.
Get plastic derivative you have scrounged earlier and gone ahead to fashion the knife sheath which should fit tightly.
The sheath should be very reliable and durable. You should follow the shape of your knife blade as well as the holes pattern.
Stitch the sheath together with paracord gut strands and then dip the entire making in plastic tool coat. Wait for an overnight before you install neck lanyard.
Final word
After following all the above-discussed steps, you should keep or store your neck knife in a safe place to allow for compactness of the glue, pins and other materials used in the knife.
Note that the process may not be that easy but it requires patience and a given level of skills.
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