HoosierBuddy
Well-known member
Hey guys,
I've made a few knives in the past. Some from kits, some from blades, and a few scratch built. They tend to not get used a lot, because sharpening is a PIA....and the cutting I do is mostly opening boxes, cutting packing tape, things like that where you'd just rather not mess up a good knife.
So I looked around at the usual sources to see if anyone sells a utility knife kit to make a lock back utility knife. My google-fu is excellent, but I couldn't find anything. Then I looked for plans online. Couldn't find that either. So I finally broke down and spent $10 for a 2 pack of Pittsburgh utility knives...with blades....and found that functionally there's not a damn thing wrong with them.
But...you know....me. Couldn't leave well enough alone. Rather than reverse engineer the larger of the two knives, which was my original intention...I ended up just hacking it. I took it apart into its component pieces, tossed the side bolsters, milled the internals to make them thinner and less klunky (took .050" off all of it), made new pins and such, machined a new larger set of scales out of G10, finished it with polyurethane (poorly....if I make another one I'll do better on this...I did the finish after assembly which was a mistake.)
If I made another one, I could do twice the job...so I may have to do that...but this is what I have now.
I've made a few knives in the past. Some from kits, some from blades, and a few scratch built. They tend to not get used a lot, because sharpening is a PIA....and the cutting I do is mostly opening boxes, cutting packing tape, things like that where you'd just rather not mess up a good knife.
So I looked around at the usual sources to see if anyone sells a utility knife kit to make a lock back utility knife. My google-fu is excellent, but I couldn't find anything. Then I looked for plans online. Couldn't find that either. So I finally broke down and spent $10 for a 2 pack of Pittsburgh utility knives...with blades....and found that functionally there's not a damn thing wrong with them.
But...you know....me. Couldn't leave well enough alone. Rather than reverse engineer the larger of the two knives, which was my original intention...I ended up just hacking it. I took it apart into its component pieces, tossed the side bolsters, milled the internals to make them thinner and less klunky (took .050" off all of it), made new pins and such, machined a new larger set of scales out of G10, finished it with polyurethane (poorly....if I make another one I'll do better on this...I did the finish after assembly which was a mistake.)
If I made another one, I could do twice the job...so I may have to do that...but this is what I have now.
