Custom Handmade Hand Forged Working Knives and Tools.

Some of the different knives and tools we’ve made for hunters, trappers, cowboys and indigenous hunters and elders. We use to peddle our knives and tools at rodeos, farmers markets, knife shows and art and craft shows. We took orders and made heavy duty camp knives, hide scrapers, skinning knives, horse shoeing knives, straight razors and garden knives and tools.

Over the past 27 years we’ve survived in the the bush, living simply, off most grids (there are logging roads) growing our food and hunting. This has given us a chance to develop working knives and tools.

https://aki-and-scott-fireweed.blogspot.com/2021/12/living-with-solar-power-for-25-years.

Custom hand forged camp knives. — Custom hand forged camp knives

Custom made camp knife handle detail — Custom made camp knife.

Handmade camp knife. Forged tang to fit the curved crown.

Custom hand forged camp knives. Forged lumber mill steel, elk antler scales, steel pommel, copper and brass. All recovered.

Big camp knives forged from leaf spring.

Custom chef knife for a camp. Both chef knives came with blade sheaths.

Camp chef knife. 8 inch blade, 3/16 inch spine, 5 inch walnut handle.

Custom Made Hunting Knives

The first couple of years here we foraged native plants and hunted for our food. Aki carved and Scott made forged hunting knives from leaf springs for cash to buy gas and sugar. We learned bushcraft skills and how to survive in the Chilcotin (Tsilhqot’in).

Now we grow most of our food.

Handmade skinning knife wrapped in a bit of leath moose antler point skinning knife balanced at the brass guard. — Handmade skinning knife wrapped in a bit of leather. An excellent skinning knife balanced at the brass guard.

Small handmade skinning knife. 2 1/2” blade. Moose Point skinning knives. We’ve made many. — Small handmade skinning knife. 2 1/2” blade. Deer Point skinning knives. We’ve made many.

All these knives were made 20 - 25 years ago. Most were sold on the road.

At shows. We had 20 - 30 tools going at the same time. Preparing for the show, re-stocking. Now we build1 to 4 tools and knives at a time. Everything is custom to order. We spend more time.

Custom camp knife. 8 “ blade, 1” finger choil,, 5/16” spine. — Custom camp knife. 7 “ blade, 1” finger choil,, 5/16” spine.

Camp knives. 6 piece set. Knives and tools. — Camp knives. 6 piece set

Custom hunting knives set in ironwood. High end knives. — Custom hunting knives set in ironwood.

Planer blade knives. Hand forged D2 steel. Recovered and repurposed into quality tools that will last generations. Original designs tooled into the sheaths.

3 small handmade hunting knives. — Handmade utility knives.

3 1/2 " Moose Point handmade skinning knives. — Larger Moose Point handmade skinning knives.

Handmade fillet knife for meat. No waste.

Custom made skinning knife..Bandsaw steel. 1998.

Sawtooth gut hook skinning knife. 3/16” spine.

The ultimate skinning knife.The ulu knife. Our Ulus. — The ultimate skinning knife.
The ulu knife. Our Ulus.

Handmade hunting knives set. — Handmade hunting knives.

Custom skinning knife. Small hand forged 3” blade.

Custom hunting knife with a cherry wood and leather sheath

Small antler handle neck knives and skinning neck knives.

Custom made survival knife sheathed with leg belts and fire steel. Absolute security. — Custom made working sheath with leg belts. Absolute security.

Collection of our tools and knives sent to us by a customer in Belgium..

Custom Woodcarving Tools

We’ve worked, testing and experimenting with all our repurposed materials in the boreal forest.

Hunting for survival, raising animals for survival has been part of our lives here. Having a big garden, putting food away by drying, canning and freezing is a big part of our spring, summer and fall. 2019, we’re going into our 22nd winter.

Aki Yamamoto carving spoons. Her son Kai in the background.

Hand forged finishing adze. Aki carving totems.

We’ve made over 1000 custom hook knives in 20 years.

Every so often we see carving tools we made 20 years ago on the internet.

Chisel slick. Second from the left. The offset handle lies flat on your work as you hammer.

A Haida carvers tool kit. Our mark was a brand at the time. You can just barely see the “S” (snake) at the top.

Couple of our tools here. The fishtail slick and the skew underneath. We found this photo on Getty Images.

Handmade Gardening knives and tools.

On the gardening scorp, Rob Borsato, an organic farmer, forged the blade from spent chainsaw file. We mounted and made the cherrywood handle. An excellent tool.

Cathy Allen, Rob Bosato’s partner designed this Zucchini knife.Both have run their 4 acre organic farm for 35 years.

Traditional living, processing your own hides

Hunting in the back country with Horses.

Custom hand forged hoof knives, Elk handle

A small hand forged skinning knife with a gut hook — A small hand forged skinning knife with some weight.

The “Chilcotin Moore” custom hunting knife.

Handmade hunting knife with it’s cherry wood and leather sheath.

Handmade neck knives for skinning small game — Handmade neck knives

Mule deer crown and saw steel hunting knife.

Custom hand forged hunting knives. Moose antler scales, 5” blade, 3/16” spine. The Gwaii Buck.

Custom made crooked knife with a deer antler handle.

Adze, slicks, skews, chisels and knives. They are what we started with. Hunting knives, kitchen knives, timber frame tools and hoof knives came with living in the Cariboo.

We made all of these. Straight knives with long handles, slicks and skews.

A couple of Cariboo Blades carving slicks. Haida carver’s tools

Broccoli knife. Handmade gardening tools.

We’ve made all kinds of garden tools. Hoes, bulb planters, specialty knives and shovels. Pictures are somewhere. We’ll post them when we find them.

Handmade Zucchini knife, Gardening tools

We’ve made a few dozen hide scrapers. Every rodeo and fall fair we’d sell a few. From top to bottom, a large hide scraper, a draw scraper knife and a small hide scraper. Like the ulu, it seems the hide scraper is a woman’s tool. Almost exclusively we sold medium size hide scrapers to older indigenous women. We can’t seem to find a picture of the medium size which was the most popular. Doing hides is hard work. The design (top and bottom scrapers) was from a drawing left for us on a napkin at the rodeo banik stand by the hereditary chief’s wife..

The large scraper pictured we still have and have used it as a hoe in the garden. It’s great. The small scarper (bottom) has the perfect angle. Great for deer hides. The medium size was preferred for moose hides.

We used wood hockey sticks (broken) for the medium hide scraper handles. We’d sand them and bring out the lamination’s. They where 16” - 18” long. To use the draw knife style scraper you’d hang your fresh hide on a pole sitting along and off the ground. Our fish tail slicks were a scraping tool of choice as well.