Ozbow

Always interested, but rarely find the time to have too much of a crack at knife making, made the odd one here and there in the last couple of years as I found time, leaving the shed (was mine) to my young fella , Tyler, and poking my nose in and listening where ever I can, and asking a lot of dumb questions. Well this has been a real cold wet winter in these parts, so I have had a go at a style of knife I saw a while back. The knife was called a “ Cape Yorker “ designed for knocking the jaws out of boars, made by Dave Keable, a genuine old school bowhunter from Queensland, who now knocks out some exquisite looking recurve bows under the name of Raven Bows.

ATS34 , OAL 280mm, blade 150mm all from 5.5mm stock,
Black micarta handle , stippled for more grip , red spacer, tapered tang, bolsters 316 stainless






And one to give some scale to things


Cheers
Wayne

Wow - looks very impressive!

Yes,very nice

Great work Wal. It does look quite a lot like the originals of which I have two.

Cool Jeff, I have only seen and handled one of them, was Black Palm the standard handle material Dave used do you know ? around what time was he making them 80's 90's.....does he still ?


Cheers

Wal,

Dave was making them in the 90's. He isn't making them anymore. The knife you modelled yours after was called the 'Cape York Hunter'. He would use various woods for the handle. Here are a couple of photos I took quickly this afternoon of my two Cape York Hunters. The top one has seen a fair bit of work and the handle was 'Dead Finish' which has lost a lot of its colour over the years. It was made in 1995. The second one was a special one he made for me. It has never seen any use and just sits in my book cupboard. As you can see it was made in 1996. On the other side it is stamped JC 001. We actually did a swap - I made him a one off of one of my top of the line longbows and he made me this one off knife. The handle is end grain Black Palm and white Corrian. What makes this knife so special is that it has been scrimshawed on both sides of the handle by the late Bill Hill; me on one side and my wife Jude on the other. Here are a couple of photos of the scrimshaw work. The photo of Jude's side was one I already had on the computer. Sorry for being so long winded but I thought the knives would be of interest to you.

Jeff

Thank you very much for taking the time mate, what a great story. There is certainly some Australian bowhunting history there, I recall seeing some of Bill Hill's scrimshaw work in an old magazine a long time ago now, it was obviously a passion of his. Those are the only others of Dave's I have seen, they were definitely built strong for the country and purpose they were intended for. You have a couple great family heirlooms there.

Thanks again.
Wayne

OK were do I get mine

Now those are knives.

Kevin

Ok... So here's a question from someone who hasn't yet taken a decent boar... How is this style of knife used for taking pig jaws?

I can strip the flesh back on a jaw ok and then use a saw to take off the jaw well back from the hooks but looking at the desighn and weight of the knife I'm wondering if the back edge is used like an axe or something to just hack off the jaw??

Yep thats it mate, on one of John Tietzels videos he shows the jaw removal with a big knife like this that he was making, Tully detusker, a real sword.

First boar I got, and there hasn't been many since, so I'm far from a guru, was as a young fella with the rifle, standing over it with an Old Timer pocket knife, I soon realised I had a dilema to get that piddly set of hooks, so..young dumb and full of c_m, I cranked a round into the .308 and put one through the where the jaw meets the skull/head, pocket knife could handle the job easy then, was deaf for a fortnight, but hell, I was a great white hunter now with a boar under my belt

Cheers

very nice work, and in the words of crocodile Dundee, now that's a knife.