Let's just say that a knife is an extremely necessary thing, and if it so happened that you were alone with nature, you don’t have a knife, but there’s nowhere to go without it! Use the experience of our ancestors and try to make a knife out of stone.

In theory, everything is quite simple, you need to find a suitable stone and process it in such a way that it has a cutting surface.

To do this, the stone must be split into plates and sharpened if necessary. As tools for making and sharpening, you can use another stone, bone, animal horn, and everything else with which you can give our knife the desired shape and sharpness, in this sense it would not be bad to practice in advance.

For manufacturing, it is best to use stones of the following breeds:

Slates- various rocks with a parallel (layered) arrangement of intergrowths of low- or medium-temperature minerals. Shales are characterized by schistosity - the ability to easily split into separate plates. They belong to terrigenous or metamorphic rocks.

Flint- a mineral formation consisting of crystalline and amorphous silica (SiO 2) in sedimentary rocks. Often painted with iron and manganese oxides in different colors, with smooth transitions between them.

In ancient times, flint fragments were used to strike fire, weapons and household items (arrowheads, flint knives, etc.) In the Middle Ages, flint was widely used to make fire by striking sparks on tinder using two pieces of flint, or one flint and a piece of other material (flint-pyrite, flint-steel). Later it was used in weaponry in wheel and shock flint gun locks.

Quartz- one of the most common minerals in the earth's crust, a rock-forming mineral of most igneous and metamorphic rocks.

Obsidian- igneous rock, consisting of volcanic glass with a water content of not more than 1%, homogeneous volcanic glass that has passed through the rapid cooling of molten rocks. Volcanic glasses that are richer in water and swell when heated are referred to as perlites.

You can make your knife a wooden handle (by tying the blade to wood with string) or use it as is. The undoubted advantage of a stone knife is its sharpness, it is also not subject to corrosion, but in terms of strength it is not very good, it can break from a fall or impact.

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How to make your own stone knife at home. How to make a stone knife with your own hands. Stone Age knives in modern conditions

Stone Age knives were flint or obsilian plates, slightly curved along the entire length (rarely straight) with a small "sharpened uchatka", and almost never looked like knives in the modern sense - just oblong plates of various shapes.

Materials for making a stone knife:

Obsidian is a homogeneous volcanic glass that has passed through the rapid cooling of molten rocks. Obsidian can be found in the Aeolian Islands, Iceland, the Caucasus, Siberia and Kamchatka.

Quartz is one of the most common minerals in the earth's crust, a rock-forming mineral of most igneous and metamorphic rocks. 12 percent of the earth's crust is made up of quartz.

Flint - nodules of silica (SiO2) in sedimentary rocks. Often painted with iron and manganese oxides in different colors, with smooth transitions between them

Shales are rocks with a parallel (layered) arrangement of the minerals that make up their composition. Shales are characterized by schistosity - the ability to easily split into separate plates.

And so let's start, we take a suitable stone, it should be one and a half times larger than the planned tool and not have cracks.

With a blow of a hard smooth stone, split the workpiece so that a flat surface is formed. The impact should be applied at an angle less than 90°. After a good blow, you should get a flat chip with a cutting edge, if this is enough for us, we can cut, since the edge is sharp.
If you want to give a certain shape, then you should take a bone or hard wood and “cut” a little, the main thing here is to be careful and not rush anywhere.
The handle can be wrapped with improvised materials (leather, fabric, young bark) or the resulting blade can be fixed in wood or bone and wrapped in the same way

This is how stone knives are usually made in the wild. At home, you can chip off the edges of a stone blank with a small hammer. The stone blank itself is best placed on a stable workbench or table, where you first put a piece of thick felt. On felt, the stone will not vibrate from hammer blows. The blows themselves will be extinguished and the probability of an unwanted split of the stone will become much less.

Fine-tuning the blade can be done with pliers - gently chipping and pinching off small pieces from the working edge. The blade to the handle is best fastened with epoxy resins, which can be styled on top, masking with strips of rawhide.

Advantages of a stone knife - a very sharp weapon that is not afraid of corrosion and does not require sharpening. Disadvantages - fragility, afraid of falls and sharp blows, from which it can crack

Knives, spears and arrows fall under the category of edged weapons. To begin with, we will learn how to make the most necessary type of weapon for survival - a knife. The knife performs three main functions. A knife can be used to pierce, hem or chop and cut. The knife is also an invaluable tool for crafting other gear for your survival. You may find yourself in an emergency without a knife, or you may need another type of knife or spear, so you can improvise and use stone, bone, wood, metal, or other suitable material to make the blade of a knife or spear.

STONE KNIFE

In order to make a stone knife you need a sharp piece of stone, a percussion tool and a peeling tool. A percussion tool is a blunt-edged tool used to break off small pieces of stone. A flaking tool is a sharp tool used to separate thin, flat pieces of stone. You can make a chipping tool out of wood, bone, or metal, and a peeling tool out of bone, horn, or soft iron.

In order to make a rough knife of the desired shape from a sharp piece of stone (obsidian, quartz, flint or slate), use a percussion tool. Try to make the knife quite thin. Then, using a peeling tool, carefully work its edges. This action will cause the "flakes" to come off the opposite side of the edge, leaving behind a razor sharp edge. Use the peeling tool along the entire length of the edge of the future knife. In the end, you will have a very sharp cutting edge that can be used like a knife. It remains to attach the resulting blade to the desired type of handle, or simply make a handle by winding a rope or other suitable material.

Stone can make a great piercing and grinding tool, but it's hard to get a good cutting edge. Although, some stones, such as flint, can have very thin edges. In the next post of this series, we will make a knife out of bone and wood.

Do stone axes man learned more than 4 million years ago. Archaeologists very often find arrowheads, knives and axes that are made of stone. And if in those distant times it was an important part of everyday life. And the future of an individual family or even a whole tribe depended on how well it was done.
Various materials were used for axes, but most often they were made of silicon.
Nowadays, this art has almost been completely forgotten and not many people can make stone axes. However, there are clubs and groups where like-minded people who are fond of archeology gather and try to restore this whole process, and there are even courses where, for a fee, they can teach how to make a stone axe.
It's quite funny to watch a group of people sit and thresh stones on their knees. They are so passionate and completely immersed in this occupation that they can spend the whole day behind it, because without proper skill it is quite difficult to make a stone axe.

In words, it would seem that everything is quite simple. You just need to break off a piece of the right size with a strong blow of a stone on a stone and you're done. But no, you have to sweat, as they say, and it takes a lot of time.

How to make a stone ax

To make stone chipper First of all, you need to prepare the necessary tools.
Since in those distant times people were not at all spoiled for a convenient and reliable tool, in order to fully understand and feel the whole process of making an ax, we will use “not prohibited” inventory.

If you do get to training and you try to make a copy of an ancient stone axe, then be sure to use protective equipment such as goggles and gloves.

Small fragments can get into the eyes, and the sharp edges of the stone can be cut.

As in any business, you first need to choose the right size stone, which we will process.

Therefore, by hitting stone on stone, you can give the necessary shape that you like.

After all, a hand ax is an individual tool that belonged to one owner. And processing by hand, the hand ax acquired in the future such a shape, thanks to which the stone sat comfortably and securely in the hand.

Thus, our instrument gradually begins to take shape.

The edges need to be sharpened, no need to strive for a perfect “sharpening” now, this will be the next step. Now it is only necessary to form and roughen the hand stone ax

After the hand ax is formed, you can begin to “sharpen” it and fine, jewelry processing.

In those distant times, there were no tools, so the processing was carried out with improvised means.

One of these tools was deer antlers, which were left in abundance after a successful hunt.
They are soft and durable and are very easy to bring to perfect condition.

With strong and accurate blows, you can “sharpen” the edges. If earlier, by hitting stone on stone, large pieces were broken off and shaped, now small sections are removed and it is possible to process the future ax more jewelry.

It was in this way that our ancestors created the main tool of labor and hunting - a stone hand axe.

wood knife

Every avid or novice hunter wants to have a high-quality hunting knife, which is needed not only for slaughtering and cutting animal carcasses, but also for various kinds of work in the forest. Commercially available mass-produced knives tend not to withstand heavy use, and custom-made daggers tend to be expensive. Therefore, many hunters do not use any other option than to make a hunting knife with their own hands. However, it must have the following characteristics:

• Straight handle for ease of striking when finishing. Often a sharp blade is used, located in the center (hunting dagger).
• The length of the blade, which is from 10 to 15 cm.
• The use of solid steel in the manufacture.
• Handle material: wood, bark, hard non-slip artificial materials with moderate relief. The knife should be comfortable for cutting with movements towards you and away from you, not slip in your hand.
• There are no extras or features.

Before making a hunting knife, you need to choose the right material. If it is steel, it must have the following characteristics:

• The degree of hardness on the Rockwell scale is from 20 to 67 HRC. The harder the metal, the greater its resistance to deformation.
• Impact strength
• Ductility of steel
• The stability of the metal when exposed to temperature.

The most suitable metal for the manufacture of a high-quality hunting knife is alloyed carbon steel, stamped tool steel with the addition of chromium and molybdenum, damask or Damascus steel. Damascus steel has the best quality characteristics. If it is not possible to use high-quality source material, you can use metal objects, giving them a second life: a spring, a file, an old garden tool.

hunting knife

To make a knife for hunting with your own hands from steel, you need to follow the guide:

1. The first stage is the making of a sketch of the future weapon.
2. The second stage is forging. A furnace or hearth is kindled, the steel is heated to a certain temperature. First, a shank is made to make it more convenient to hold the workpiece. Next, the shape of the tip is formed. The blade should be forged according to the outlined sketch, without changing the thickness of the steel.
3. Handle manufacturing. It can be type-setting and solid. If type-setting, the material for the handle is measured in accordance with the shank, both parts of the handle are applied to it and glued. If the handle is one-piece, a hole is made in it, then it is mounted on the shank with glue. After that, it should be carefully sanded for convenience. For the manufacture of the handle, it is best to use fiberglass impregnated with epoxy resin, or textolite. They are light and strong, unlike wood, which can be damaged when dropped, or metal, which can freeze through temperature changes and is heavy.

file knife

How to make a hunting knife from a regular file? For this you will need:

1. File
2. Vise
3. Jigsaw or scissors for metal
4. Hammer
5. Drill with a drill for metal
6. Sandpaper
7. Material for the handle (wood, leather, piece of textolite).

The first step is to harden the steel. Ideally, a home oven is suitable for this, in the furnace of which you need to throw a file so that it heats up there for 4-6 hours, and then cools down there. A blank is made for the future knife, a file shape is cut out of it. With the help of sandpaper, the shape of the knife is processed, its rough sharpening is performed. On the wooden plates, which will be the handle, holes are made for attaching to the knife by riveting. Pre-linings need to be coated with epoxy. The handle can be shaped using a jigsaw. After that, the knife is polished and polished with sandpaper, and the final sharpening: first on a grinder, then again with sandpaper. You can polish your resulting blade with felt or polish.

wood knife

Wood can be used as a cutting tool, especially in field conditions. To make a wooden knife with your own hands, you need to use chips and flakes of coniferous branches that have a sharp cutting edge or other durable and high-quality wood. The process of making a knife from wood with your own hands is simpler than steel: you need to prepare your favorite sketch on paper, which you transfer to a wooden canvas. Wooden knives are usually made in one piece. After that, the handle and blade are given the desired shape with the help of a chisel, a file, and the blade is sharpened. The finished product is varnished or fired.

Another option on how to make a wooden knife is to make it from medium thickness plywood. Similar to the works described above, a sketch is first made. Then you need to prepare the three constituent elements of the blade: the blade and two parts of the handle, consisting of a round holder and a base plate. The blade is sharpened, and the handle is processed with a file and sandpaper to remove all irregularities.

DIY stone knife

The material for the manufacture of a knife blade can be flat-shaped rocks, such as slate, flint, obsidian, quartz. Layered mineral rocks may well replace steel with their sharp cutting edge. To make a tool, you will need a stone one and a half times larger than the original product, without cracks and defects. It must be split at an angle of up to 90 degrees so that a flat surface is obtained. After reaching the desired flat shape, you can process the handle by wrapping it with improvised materials or enclosing it in wood. At home, the stone is processed with a hammer. The stone is placed on a flat hard surface covered with felt. Thus, it will not vibrate from impacts and move. The final formation of the blade can be done with pliers, breaking off piece by piece from its edge. The handle must be attached using epoxy resin, which can be wrapped with strips of leather or fabric on top. A stone knife is not afraid of corrosion, is very sharp and does not require sharpening, but a fall from a height can lead to its split.

It was based on improvised material - an old ceramic tile that has served its time.

I decided to describe the experience gained, and since I didn’t have a camera with me, the next day I made a new grinding stone with step-by-step photographs of the entire manufacturing process.

Thus, I prepared practical advice for a home master explaining how to make a grindstone from ceramic tiles with my own hands and sharpen a knife on it with explanatory diagrams, pictures and a video. They complement

The whole work of creating the second bar and photographing it took me about half an hour. The same time, and possibly faster, you will need when making it yourself. Although, I do not urge you to do homemade work: you can just go to the store and buy a grindstone for money.

However, I hope that there will be people who will find my information useful.

About the geometry of figures when sharpening

The whetstone, due to frictional forces, changes the shape of the blade and wears itself out. This means that two contact surfaces on both objects work at once, influencing each other.

If the sharpening knife gets in a blunt state and should acquire a cutting edge shape close to ideal, then the grindstone works the other way around: its normal state is violated.

Knife blade shape

I will repeat the cross-sectional diagram of the blade from the previous article, where all its angles and planes are described in detail.

Let us consider in more detail the role of the leads on the formation of the cutting edge in different designs of knife blades. It in all models should be created by a single very thin line without depressions, protrusions and notches.

The word blade has a root - a wedge that defines its cross section. The shape of the knife can be:

1. rectilinear;
2. curved.

Cutting edge of a straight knife

The shape of a straight blade is the simplest.

In perfect condition, the cutting edge is a pronounced straight and very thin line. However, there are “masters” who, on an emery wheel, simply apply the blade to the edge and grind it from both sides according to the “How it will turn out” principle, bending the supplies. This disrupts the operation of the blade and its sharpening.

Curved knife cutting edge

For such a blade, the cutting edge is created as a line of conjugation of two curved surfaces of the same type. Both types of blades: convex and concave require much more attention from the sharpener.

Grindstone surfaces

For proper sharpening of the blade, the working planes must be kept in perfect condition and be free of depressions and bumps.

A good whetstone, laid on the table, has a flat surface located.

If it is broken, then the stone will distort the geometry of the cutting edge of the blade. This often happens when the sharpener uses too much force or drives the knife over one area of ​​the work surface. Defects will appear on it immediately due to uneven wear.

It is unlikely that you will be able to sharpen a knife with such a tool.

Bar manufacturing technology

Material selection

I made my first homemade grindstone from ceramic tiles 15 by 15 cm, about 6 cm. I don’t know the type of ceramic material. I had to grind off a layer of building glue and the ribs of the corrugated surface from the back to a single level.

To write an article the next day, I took a ready-made piece of Sacmi ceramics from Italy, which was left after the renovation of the bathroom. It has already been cut to a size of 30 by 8 cm. These dimensions allow the blade to be driven along a twice as long trajectory: it is easier to sharpen the knife this way.

From the back side of the tile there was only a corrugated surface without foreign mortar. It needed to be sharpened and leveled to a single base level.

Processing tools

Its length is 25 cm more than the diameter of my emery wheel, and the outer and side surfaces are relatively even, although far from ideal. The grain size of the stone is quite high.

I observed similar work several decades ago, when the hostess corrected the blade on the brick of the hearth of the Russian stove.

The process of making a grindstone

The work came down to:

• relief elimination;
• fixing on a wooden base;
• tests.

relief removal

He laid the tile on the brick and manually began to grind the edges of the corrugation.

However, the length of the brick is shorter than my tile. This created some difficulties. I tried to work on two bricks of the same size.

The work goes faster, but it is necessary to control the joint of the ends of both stones and the position of the ceramics.

Since tile processing occurs on random surfaces from improvised materials, the condition of the surface to be ground should be periodically assessed. On it are formed places of different heights. This requires adjustment of effort and direction of movement.

The rubbing surfaces of bricks and tiles create abrasive dust. It must be removed.

I tried to wash it off with water, but I came to the conclusion that for my conditions it’s enough just to sweep one face of the bar from the brick and shake it off the tile with a sharp movement.

It is necessary to finish this work when zones free from the relief are formed on the created surface and only separate very thin sections with it remain.

At this stage, you can stop, but it is better to take a strip of sandpaper, wrap it around a flat wooden board or metal plate, and use this tool to bring the plane of the created whetstone to an ideal state.

After processing with sandpaper, you will need to wash off the abrasive dust from the new grindstone with ordinary water.

It turned out a home-made whetstone from improvised means with a smooth grinding surface made of ceramics.

For the convenience of further work with it in different places, I make an additional basis.

Design improvement

It took the simplest set that every home master has:

• a piece of board a little wider than a grindstone;
• hacksaw;
• awl;
• screwdriver;
• screws.

Mounting process

I put the whetstone on the edge of the board, as shown in the photo above, and with an awl I make markings for screwing in the fixing screws from the opposite side.

For this purpose, I used not modern, but old Soviet-made screws.

They must be screwed in so that the caps hold the end of the ceramic and are recessed a third below its height. This will sharpen the knife without the possibility of touching it with fasteners.

Similarly, I make fastening from the sides of the bar.

On the remaining fourth side, I fix the ceramics with screws and corners.

The lower holes of the corners will allow you to attach the entire structure to prepared nails without a hat on a workbench. At the same time, they will not interfere with the work of this device on a regular table.

It remains to choose a convenient length of the handle of the whetstone and cut off the excess board with a hacksaw.

The tool for sharpening a knife is handmade. It remains to evaluate it in the work.

Tests

To test how such a whetstone works, an old knife from a cutlery set with a curved blade was taken.

Literally after several sharpening movements, clearly visible traces of metal filings appeared on the grinding surface, remaining from the processing of the blade.

They must be washed off periodically with water.

To sharpen a knife properly, the surface of the whetstone must be kept clean. Then she will work with the maximum effect of her capabilities.

The cutting edge of the knife formed very quickly.

I did not finish it on the skin with GOI paste, but simply checked how it works on paper and the hair of the hand. The blade did a good job with paper, but turned out to be unsuitable as a razor: processing was carried out too quickly, and polishing was not carried out.

Yes, in everyday life this is usually not necessary. After all, an elite tool can always be brought to a shaving state. The main thing is that a well-functioning whetstone can be quite simply made from ceramic tiles with your own hands by any home craftsman.

Features of creating a cutting edge on a bar

I will supplement and recall the basic sharpening rules that must be observed:

• it is necessary to work carefully and carefully, without applying significant efforts: one careless movement can ruin the approach plane with the cutting edge;
• when sharpening a knife, the stability of the angle of its inclination to the bar and the width of the supplies are constantly monitored;
• the blade should always be directed along the movement with a sharp edge, and not from the side of the butt.

If the blade is strongly curved by incorrect sharpening, then it is permissible to grind off all the protruding parts on the emery to a general level, and then process it into a bar.

Using a whetstone, the sharpening angle is created by controlling the tilt of the blade, which is half its value. To do this, the approach plane must be exactly on the surface of the bar.

Sharpening curved blades

Knives with a convex shape

When sharpening, such a blade is applied with an approach to the surface of the grindstone and they make not a direct, but a curvilinear movement, which repeats the shape of the cutting edge. It must always be perpendicular to the movement being made.

Knives with a concave shape

Such a blade design is not common in household use, for example, among gardeners in a grafting tool. Their processing is very complex and requires special skills and tools.

Without proper preparation, a concave blade is easy to ruin with an ordinary bar. Such sharpening must be studied separately or entrusted to an experienced master. Therefore, I will not consider its features here.

In this article you will find, perhaps, the most necessary minimum of historical information about where such a wonderful and simple (as it may seem at first glance) thing like a knife came from.

We will go through the history of the appearance of the first knives, look in order at all the significant stages in the development of both the blades themselves and humanity as a whole. First of all, let's turn to our favorite Wikipedia. How does she give us the definition of what a knife is?

What is a knife and its definition

A "knife" is a cutting tool whose working body is a blade - a strip of hard material (usually metal) with a blade on one or more sides. In the design, the blade and the handle can most often be distinguished.

In general, as we wrote at the very beginning, it does not look so difficult, does it? On the one hand yes...

On the other hand, mankind has been using knives since the Paleolithic, i.e. from the Stone Age to the present day. The knife remains still relevant and even more so, in the modern world a huge variety of types, types and uses of the knife has appeared.

In practice, we have the fact that the more knowledge and technology appears in humanity, the greater the knife variety appears in the world. And it all started like this...

Stone Age knife: Neanderthals and their first knives

Before you, presumably, one of the first inventors of the knife and he lived about 2.6 million years ago.

Knives were made from bone, stone, flint plates or volcanic glass.

In the Stone Age, people made knives from bone, horn and stone, but still most often from flint plates or obsidian, which, in fact, are volcanic glass. They made them very simply - they took large pieces and crushed or broke them into pieces. Due to its structure, silicon, when broken, breaks into pieces with a fairly sharp edge.

It is clear that such knives were not bad at that ancient stage of development, they were sharp and did not dull for a very long time. They also had several disadvantages inherent in any stone, glass and ceramics:

Nowadays, finding a knife "in the design of the Stone Age" will not be difficult. In this case, the knife is made of Damascus steel.

On the territory of modern China, for example, silicon and obsidian were so scarce that bamboo knives became widespread. But knives made of bone were common among the peoples of the Far North until the 19th century.

Bronze Age: Spartan and Roman knife

And these are the legionnaires of the Roman Empire, which existed for 16 centuries.

About five thousand years ago, a person nevertheless mastered the extraction and processing of metal, and began to make knives from copper and bronze. Actually, all antiquity from the time of the ancient Hellenes (they are also ancient Greeks) to the ancient Romans and Byzantium is the triumph of copper and bronze over stone.

Knives of that time were most often solid

After the development of copper and bronze, empires were created, which, in terms of territorial extent and time of existence, have no equal to this day. The knives of those times were mostly solid-cast, but folding knives were also invented in the Roman Empire - a distant ancestor of our modern multi-tool and hiking knife.

Roman folding "army" knife. Spoon, fork, awl, toothpick, and God knows what else. II-III AD. Hello Swiss knives from the Roman Empire!

Such a versatile knife was indispensable for meals, and especially for the constant camping life that absolutely all soldiers led. Every Roman soldier carried such a knife with him throughout his entire service life, and perhaps later used it at home.

Please note that the blade of the knife is not made of bronze, but of iron. Iron was already known in the Bronze Age, although it was not used as massively as in subsequent centuries. At that time, it was much more expensive in terms of extraction and processing, but it gave greater strength and durability, sharpness to the blade itself.

Iron Age knives: Vikings, knights and samurai

A shot from the series "Vikings", which tells about one of the detachments of that time and shows us the culture, life, rituals and way of life of the Vikings.

Vikings (northerners, sea robbers, trouble for any merchants and conquerors, the "scourge of God" as they were also called in Europe), knights, samurai and ninja - they all existed at the same time, but at different ends of the globe.

Indian and Arabic damascus, Russian damask steel, legends about living swords and legends about heroes - all this is the age of iron and steel.

The Iron Age is one of the bloodiest in the history of both knives and humanity

Jokes aside, but those times were pretty bloody, although certainly not as bloody as our modern times with nuclear bombs and nuclear cruisers capable of destroying entire cities in a minute.

Although most of the knowledge of antiquity was lost in the Middle Ages, something was nevertheless adopted by the barbarian peoples. For example, gunsmithing associated with the processing of iron. If we talk about quality, then it is over, it has fallen significantly compared to antiquity.

The average blacksmith of that time had an idea of ​​how to forge a horseshoe or sickle for harvesting from soft iron. Such iron was not only expensive, but there were serious problems with the quality of the steel itself.

The Finnish knife is a typical representative of Scandinavian northern type knives. The Vikings had something similar.

The secrets of the weapons business were passed on only to their students.

Each master had his own secrets and passed them on only to his students. It was also dangerous to single out strongly in terms of product quality. If your knives or other weapons were much better than those of other blacksmiths, then such a master could be “invited” to the holy inquisition to talk about whether you dabble in black magic, because. for some reason, other God-fearing blacksmiths do not produce such high-quality items.

As you understand, not only beautiful women and scientists were burned at that time, but also good craftsmen. A good sword could cost several villages along with their inhabitants. Legends were added about swords, endowed them with intelligence, magical properties and gave their own names.

After the Crusades, the situation changed for the better. The knights, having visited the Muslim East, got access to the knowledge that was preserved and multiplied by the Arabs (after all, earlier these were Roman colonies, and the Romans respected knowledge very much), and therefore the knowledge of antiquity was not lost in those countries. The East of those times was very advanced in science, art, medicine and so on.

European knights, imprisoned from head to toe like tanks in iron armor and who covered the whole east with blood. They also made trips to Rus'. Everything, as they say, to the glory of the Lord, however, they did not offend themselves either, along the way taking with them all the treasures and valuables that they could capture.

Japanese samurai on the other side of the world were distinguished by their extreme ruthlessness and bloodthirstiness, they repeatedly conquered both Korea and China. Moreover, Korea was attacked simply because it was on the way to China. It was a sin not to rob and kill for your own pleasure.

Tanto or Japanese knife is the legacy of the samurai, which has survived to this day.

Iron Age knives were very diverse, ranging from shape, length and ending with materials. In Indonesia, a curved knife with a sickle-shaped blade in the form of a tiger's claw appears - karambit, as well as the famous kris knife with a wavy blade in the form of a fiery tongue of flame.

A knife in Rus' is an attribute of a free person

In Rus' and in Europe, a knife is an attribute of a free person. A serf or Polonian has no right to have his own knife.

The knife of the Vikings and northerners is generally made with a wooden handle so that the steel does not burn the hand in the cold and does not slip in the blood when cutting game and fish. Do not forget about the Finnish hunter's and fisherman's knife, Japanese blue steel knives. All of them, too, were finally formed precisely in the Middle Ages!

Renaissance: Pirate Knife and Naval Conquest

His Majesty's Royal Musketeers in Europe.

The Renaissance era is characterized by several important points:

1. At this time, the sciences and arts were developing rapidly, the first industrial centers were emerging, where metal processing was not a matter of talented individuals (as was the case before), but of entire craft and trade guilds.
Firearms upstage knives
2. The invention of firearms makes armor and shields so heavy and expensive that they are abandoned altogether. The Spanish conquistadors, armed with lances, are among the last to use armor, the last legacy of the Middle Ages. The shell is very good against melee weapons, but the heavy muskets that have replaced the small-caliber arquebuses even pierce them.
3. The renaissance period is the time of the full development of metal. The knives of this era are varied and stand out for their excellent quality.
4. The discovery of America, the development of trade and the weak control of the colonies gives rise to such a phenomenon as the maritime brotherhood. Boarding, pirates!

In battle, the Spanish pikemen cover the musketeers from the reiters (cavalry with pistols).

The queen of the seas of that time was undoubtedly Spain. Their infantry, the most disciplined and strongest infantry of the time, was very effective in combat, which eventually let Spain down. Such efficiency slowed down the development and adoption of firearms, which gave the British, French and Dutch a chance to get ahead.

Do not forget that it was the Spaniards who discovered and conquered America - with crossbows, broadswords and pikes. It was believed that in a humid and hot climate, firearms were too unreliable.

Now directly about the knives of the renaissance and marine discoveries.

The Spanish Navaja is a classic folding knife of the time.

One of the most famous examples from that time is the Spanish Navaja. She was born in the 15th century, when the authorities, due to the danger of popular riots, legally forbade ordinary people to have edged weapons with a fixed blade. Swords and other weapons had the right to wear only the upper class and the army. Sailors' knives were often folding, because just such a knife could be carried anywhere and it takes up little space.

An example of a modern knife that has already become a classic.

Once the production of knives becomes mass, there are so many options that it becomes a bit of a problem to make your choice. Advertising, films and the press are so intertwined in an attempt to sell and make money on sales of blades that the average buyer, not savvy in knowledge, must learn to understand the many intricacies of this direction.

• Choose a folding knife or a fixed blade?
• What brand began to take the blade?
• What size?
• What companies produce high-quality and inexpensive knives?
• What cost to expect?

We will try to answer these and other questions in subsequent articles. While I would like to give general, but no less important recommendations. The main thing you need to do in any case is to understand

1. For what purposes do you need a knife and in what conditions will you use it?
2. How much do you expect?

Formulate for yourself the answers to these seemingly simple questions (only you can answer them yourself) and 90% of the work will be done.

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