Redneck Knife Kit

Life in general has precluded me from getting into the woods for a few weeks and I'm going a bit stir crazy so I decided I'd do a quickie photoshoot of the Redneck Knives woodlore kit I did last year. Redneck Knives is a custom maker from Florida. Steve (AKA "Red") does blades, kits, finished knives and sheaths... all very well.

This kit came as a finished blade, a pair of  scales, some Loveless bolts, some liner material and a bit of lanyard tubing. The blade is 1/8" 1095 steel with stabilized dyed box elder scales, black liners, and stainless hardware.

This was the first high-quality knife blade that I handled.  The process was pretty simple and straight forward: outline the handle and cut the scales to shape, drill the holes (countersink for the Loveless bolts), glue the scales on and tighten the bolts, cut the bolts flush, and shape with a sander. The final sanding was done by hand and with the scales buffed with a wheel on my drill press it was job done.

Try to ignore the schmutz on the blade... I was just hacking some cedar with it in the backyard and there is some sap on the blade.

 I made a dangler sheath from 8-9 oz veg tanned leather and concocted an olive green oil dye from various colors that I had on hand. The sheath was finished with Super Sheen and the black edges and whatnot are Edge Kote. Not my best sheath, but serviceable, and certainly one of a kind.

 The only problem with the knife and sheath is that if I set them down when I'm out in the field they virtually disappear in the foliage/grass/leaves!