Second bushcraft knife - 01 Carbon Steel with Olivewood

fter a weekend camping in the woods and seeing my first bushcraft knife (Pau Rosa 4mm Bearing Steel) in action, a friend asked me to make him up and bushcraft knife. I suggested he go for a 3mm blade similar to one I had from bladesmith Mick Spain in 01 carbon steel as it would be the right combination of blade strength and weight for what he wanted to use it for. I contacted Mick who was kind enough to let me have one of his bushcraft blades and went about sourcing a suitable piece of olivewood for the project.

Specs for this bushcraft knife:

Blade: Mick Spain, 3mm O1 Steel, 58/59HRC, 25 degree bevels, blade length 105mm, tang length 115mm, 200 grit finish.

Handle material - Olivewood with red fibre liners.

Pins - Corby bolts and lanyard tube in brass.

Sheath - 3.5mm leather, dark brown without firesteel holder this time.

The olivewood, I considered using black liners initially but the bright red looked so good together with the light wood I pressed on with that combination. Olivewood can be a hazard to work with as the dust is very fine so a mask and safety glasses must be worn when working with it. However I had misplaced my safety glasses so a pair of retro Ray Bans were at hand to help keep the dust out of my eyes, albeit providing a very dark working environment!

As you can see from the profile images, the blade is heavily figured in a traditional "coke bottle" style. It fits the hand very well and with the olivewood really turned out better than expected. The corby bolts proved less of an issue than I was expecting and do a good job of holding the handle slabs on to the blade while the resin sets making a nice flush finish. The olivewood is finished to 600 grit and with natural Danish Oil then Renaissance Wax.

For the sheath, I used the same 3.5mm vegetable tanned leather I have before, wet-formed, stitched with brown linen thread and with the addition of a lanyard hole at the bottom of the sheath. The sheath is dyed dark brown and finished with carnuba wax.

Overall I'm happy with this knife and am looking forward to the next project which is another Mick Spain blade I have awaiting a handle.