Something I thought you guys might enjoy. I recently received and inquiry about building an existing client a custom version of the Fairbairn Sykes dagger, as well as a slightly more robust self defense dagger type knife, but with a shorter blade. While doing the designs I thought of going all the way, so to speak and going really short - partly for the fun of it and partly to build a knife of this type to just iron out the quirks as it were, in preparation for his order.

It is not finished yet, but I think you will get the idea - call it a boot knife - 1/4" thick O1 toolsteel blade, 3" long and just short of 1.5" wide, brass cross guard, maroon micarta and then stacked leather, brass pommel. Tang is 1/4 x 1/3 tapered to 1/6th for the last 1/4" for riveting purposes:



I have large (XXL glove) hands but the 3 1/4" handle still gives a nice grip:



Riveted end



In the palm of my hand. Should carry unobtrusively on a belt too - especially horizontal



And in hand, to give another perspective:

That looks beefy. That is going to turn out great. Stout but small.

Nice boot knife, A model 24 keep me from being mauled by a dog. Your boot knife is certainly beefy enough for that.

Thanks Steven and Walter. Always good to have a sturdy knife on you - bet you never thought about getting mauled when you left home that morning - pays to be prepared!

Anyway, here it is. Basically done - bear in mind it is only a prototype that I built in preparation for the upcoming order. But it showed promise so I decided to finish it off as a "user":










Sheath is set up for horizontal or vertical carry on the belt, or a back pack strap:



Next to a Buck 112 for scale:

Very nice Willem and great pictures. It looks very sturdy.

Little-big-knife!!

Thanks Jimmy and Hans! :-)