Perhaps making your own knife would be the best bushcraft knife for you?
In your search for the best bushcraft knife, perhaps you have reached the conclusion that the commercially available knives are just not right for you? Perhaps you either don’t want to or cannot afford to work with a custom knife maker to realise your vision?
Perhaps making your own knife would lead to the best bushcraft knife for you?
Best Bushcraft Knife - Why make your own?
There are many reasons why someone might choose to make their own knife:
You may just have a burning desire to do it? Certainly in my case this was true. I spent many years building a successful career in an office. Quite often what I achieved was intangible and I yearned to get back to my roots and physically make something meaningful with my own hands.
You may wish to have something in your own style or aesthetic rather than being forced to accept someone else’s. It also gives you the opportunity to play with functional features until you find a combination that works for you and suits your specific purpose. You have complete freedom to modify and combine different design ideas until you find what’s right. In this way, you can create something truly unique.
You may just want to make it for yourself as there is certainly a real pleasure in using something you have made with your own hands. There is a real and special relationship that develops between maker and a knife made for personal use. There is nothing quite like the sense of pride you get in using equipment you have manufactured yourself and have it work and work well.
You may just want to make it to meet your own exacting specification or so that it fits your hand perfectly.
Knife making can also be a vehicle for personal growth. You get constant and immediate visual feedback of your own level of skill improvement and gain a wider awareness of your own abilities knife to knife, batch to batch.
The three knives shown combine all of these reasons. I made these as a matched set to meet the needs I had at the time.
Best Bushcraft Knife - Examples
The first knife was designed to be small, compact and really slicey. I specifically wanted it for camp kitchen tasks, slicing meat and vegetables for example.
The second knife was designed for processing game, especially larger game. It has a large belly to help with skinning tasks and a drop point to prevent inadvertent punctures. I added a feature to the rear of the handle to pry and split with. It’s also really useful for scraping and striking a ferrocerium rod.
The final knife is a larger camp knife for general purpose use, especially for those heavier duty camp tasks.
All three knives were made by hand from O1 tool steel, featuring flat grinds, convex bevels and Elm burr wood for the handles.
Best Bushcraft Knife - How to proceed.
Don’t think you have the skill to do this? At one time everyone made their own cutting tools from processed bone or through flint knapping. These would have been very common place skills with sharpened blades being amongst the earliest man made objects found. Since that time there has been a rich tradition of individual manufacture, especially in the USA, where it enjoyed a resurgence in the 1970s and has recently been popularised by TV shows like ‘Forged in fire’. If all of these people can learn, often without formal training, then so can you.
A high quality, aesthetically pleasing and functional knife can be made using basic hand tools, at minimum cost with a little time and effort. My advice if you go down this route is do not get sucked into the high technology trap - it’s simply not necessary when you are first starting out. Secondly, make sure you are doing stuff that gives you joy! Don’t over commit on making things for others and turn something fun into something that’s a source of stress. Finally, don’t be afraid to fail, steel is relatively cheap and the best lessons are learnt when things start to go wrong.
Whatever your reason, making your own knife may well be the best bushcraft knife for you. I challenge you to challenge yourself!
Not sure where to start? Further information on making your own knife can be found in my Journal on knife making.
Best Bushcraft Knife - Summing it all up
By this point, if you have read all of the journal entries in this occasional series, the message should have been received loud and clear. The best bushcraft knife for you is the one that suits you and is capable of undertaking all of the tasks you need it to do. Where are you going to use it and what are you going to use it for? Unfortunately, this knowledge takes a bit of dirt time using a knife to work out what is good and what is bad, and then make your choice from the myriad of options available.
My advice, buy a cheap but quality knife for your first knife, and use it and abuse it. Do all your learning on this knife. Once you are confident that you understand what works for you look at upgrading. At that point, buy the most expensive knife you can afford that has the features you need. Buy nice or buy twice. If at all possible, try the knife before you buy it especially if you have any concerns whatsoever about the fit and comfort of the handle.
Ultimately your choice will be influenced by your journey in bushcraft - what interests you now and how your interests have changed as your knowledge and experience have developed will help define your choices.
If you have any desire to make your own bushcraft knife, I would highly encourage you to do so. It’s very rewarding and not nearly as complex and expensive as it seems on the surface, once the underlying process is understood.
Final thoughts, indigenous hunter gathers around the world still use knives daily that most bushcraft enthusiasts would be embarrassed to own, yet they survive and positively thrive in the wilderness environment. Remember the exact choice of knife doesn’t matter - the knowledge of how to use it is far more important!
You now have all the knowledge you need to make an informed choice. With Bushcraft, survival skills and wild camping becoming increasingly popular why not get started today?
