Question about fillet knives

[Hurley]

I was working on laying out a handle for a $15 fillet knife blank I got from the bay the other week and I had a thought while doing it. What if I made these? The steel is only .10 thick and 1" w x 12" l. Steel costs would be cheaper and fishing is abundant in Georgia. Now granted it might be a little tough seeing as how it is long and thin.

Anyone here have much experience in building fillet knives?

[Ray Rogers]

Sure, how many do you want?

http://www.rayrogers.com/fillet1.htm


The trick is to make them better than the commercial knives (which are, basically, disposable) and then find a way to make the sportsman pay $200 for it because it will last a life time instead of $25 every season ...

[argel55]

Grinding is the hardest part. You need to utilize a push stick or backing board to help keep them rigid when you grind them. They will want to bend away from you so your stick will keep them in contact with the wheel.
Grind them to thin from top to bottom and from guard to tip.

[WynnKnives]

I've made a couple, and I went the utility route with it. 440c, sold em for cheap, put an easy flat grind on it and used horse stable mat for the handle. Impervious to water and fish guts, and gives an excellent grip when wet, and super cheap. So far happy customers, I would make them if requested, but don't think I would waste my time with mirror finishes and nice handle material. Unless it was going to be a part of a nice kitchen set.

[Hurley]

No argel55, I actually don't like mirror finishes on knives, I'm not sure I would put one on a nice kitchen set. I prefer a satin finish, a functional knife, not one to just look at.

[Imakethings]

When I go and work on a knive that thin I usually end up gluing my knife blank to a piece of angel iron with a high temp glue or a weakened polyester resin to support it.

[Crex]

'Pends on how much experience you have with grinders and how bad you want to learn the hard stuff.
I would never recommend making fillet knives to beginner stockremovalist. Just too tricky a process to learn starting out. Learn to grind regular blades real well first.

Ray's got a very good point....most fishermen look at fillet knives as a disposable commodity and aren't too interested in spending big bucks on a toss away. Spending as much as on a good reel and watching it disappear into the deeper blue ...... well, I see their point.

[smithy]

Originally Posted by Crex

'Pends on how much experience you have with grinders and how bad you want to learn the hard stuff.
I would never recommend making fillet knives to beginner stockremovalist. Just too tricky a process to learn starting out. Learn to grind regular blades real well first.

Ray's got a very good point....most fishermen look at fillet knives as a disposable commodity and aren't too interested in spending big bucks on a toss away. Spending as much as on a good reel and watching it disappear into the deeper blue ...... well, I see their point.

I agree with you about making a fillet knife. I don't agree with you that fisherman consider a fillet knife to be disposable.

I have 2 brother-in-laws. Both are avid fisherman. Each told me that their fillet knives were POS's and that they had tried many different ones. We talked at length about what they would like in a fillet knife and I told them that one made to their specifications would be expensive, like $250.00 to $350.00. They didn't bat an eye. They told me that there would be a market among their fishing buddies. I told them to make do with what they had and I would be able to make them one in 2 or 3 years.

Just like anything else, if you have a passion for something like fishing, you want the best equipment.

[Ray Rogers]

Teddy,

Yes, I know that's true because I have sold many in that price range. What I said was that commercial fillet knives were disposable - meaning the under $25 Rapala's mostly. But, you do need to factor in the possibility of losing that expensive fillet knife as Carl pointed out - that possibility stops more than a few sales of expensive fillet knives. You're right though, those guys would like a nice knife too if they can get one ...

[Hurley]

Couldn't you just make sure the handle material was buoyant enough material to make the blade float if it was dropped overboard. A fillet isn't much steel, but I'm new and may be missing something.

[Ray Rogers]

Maybe you can but I haven't managed it yet. Some I used neoprene on, that's nice and grippy but doesn't float. I used cork on one, that's pretty grippy and it will sort of float a small blade, but maybe not well enough to recover the knife. Most of mine have had 11" blades and a regular sized cork handle won't float that. So far, the best bet seems to be tying a lanyard onto the knife but that gets in the way and most guys won't use one ....

[Hurley]

Wonder if carbon fiber would do the trick? I doubt it would although I've never worked with it.

[Ray Rogers]

Carbon fiber is strong and light but it's not lighter than cork. I far as I know, CF doesn't float by itself, much less if it has to support any additional weight. It's pretty nasty to work with too.

An item - any kind of item - can only float when the amount of water it displaces weighs more than the item itself weighs. This means your best chance might be with a thin walled hollow handle and no tang under it. That's not something we can easily make. It might work, but it wouldn't be very strong and the blade would still be only large enough for the smallest of fillet knives. You can find knives like this on Amazon and other places for about $20 - paper thin 6" blades of poor quality stainless but with a hollow molded plastic handle.

I'm thinking maybe a high quality blade, any size you need. Put that on a handle with a small gas cylinder in it (like for air rifles). The gas cylinder inflates a small buoy attached to 50 feet of super thin mono-filament, maybe 100 ft, which deploys when a sensor in the handle registers a pressure change equal to about 3 ft of depth. Then, you can grab the buoy and retrieve your knife. Simple ....

[argel55]

3xSharp you got the wrong guy on the comment on mirror polishes.
Handle scales need to be put on with corbys or loveless bolts. Just pinnin is asking for trouble on flexible and thin material.

[fuzzy]

all the sensors, lines and bouys may be getting in a higher price range but you may get with china and get it done for under a 100