Another home built knife

This is my favorite skinning knife. As a friend of mine said, "You can skin a whale with a four inch blade, it just takes longer." Longer blades cover more area, they are also harder to control.
.
This one is also .221 thick 440 stainless. The knife is seven and three quarters inches long. It has epoxy impregnated hard wood grips and nickle silver bolts. It's full tang has finger grooves as well as a gut hook for opening the body cavity of game. The blade is three inches of hollow ground sharpness with a Rockwell hardness of about sixty four. Hard enough to hold a a good edge, but it can be sharpened with about anything.

.

The scales are laminated in brown, green and black stained hard wood. They are set with a layer of Super Glue underneath to keep anything from leaking under them and being unsanitary.

.

The sheath was bought from the supplier of the blade blank and soaked in a zip lock of linseed oil. That transforms a pinkish tan to a chocolate brown and hopefully will preserve the leather long past my demise. I've never been a fan of drop in sheaths, you never know when a missed step will leave you injured, and if you are alone and lose your knife, nothing good will come of it.

I don't worry about that issue because of the fact that I carry a couple of backups.

.

When I shape the grips, I drill the holes to fit the blade and then glue and bolt the scales in place. When all is dry I'll star shaping them with a sanding wheel. This allows me to blend the shapes and remove material with out damaging the steel or it's finish. The final step for this grip is a polish with a cotton wheel and plastic polish.

.

Not counting my time or equipment, I probably have fifty or so dollars in a knife that will last several life times.