Before I found this place I use to make filet knives for myself and friends from old metal cutting bandsaw blades on a craftsman wet wheel grinder. Slow and painful it was, but the time went by and was fun to stand at the grinder knowing the temper was not being lost on that cool, slow wheel.My uncle Frank who raised me showed me how to do it and we would scrounge old knife handles and even just regrind the blades of old kitchen knives if they were suitable. My uncle was a fisherman and taught me to fish since I was a wee tike. I use to fish everyday of my life. I bought my first auto, a 1960 ford falcon van, in 1974 from money that I made fishing. At that time catfish and white bass were the money fish. I watched the Lake Erie walleye and steelhead fishery grow from hammer handles to 10-12 pounders plus and have caught, ate and sold countless pounds of them. Eatin fish from lake Erie never hurt me a bit, (twitch twitch). Fish sold on the hoof from those that met me at the dock. Caught , cleaned, and delivered to my dayly and weekly customers kept me, as a young man out of trouble and in beer women and cigs. the rest i just wasted. In my spare time I buillt custom fishing rods, tied flies for three shops and did all their rod repair. My uncle died in 1975 at age 75, and left me his fishing boat. A 12' alum Larson with the sweetest kikehafer mercury 15 horse motor with a magic sweet spot trolling kickdown lever. I did not get to use it much as my phone rang at 3am every morn with offers to ride, fish and guide for doctors,lawyers,dentists and retired folk around our sleepy little summer cottage town. 1983 came along and the state outlawed selling fish. I was an outlaw for awhile but eventually gave up my lawless ways.
I tell this long rambling preamble, to let you know I have cleaned some fish in my day. Not just my fish, but the fish of the people I guided for. After fishing so many hours a day the last thing you want to do is clean fish for hours on end, so I learned to do it quickly, efficiently and tried to conserve as much filleted poundage as possible. I developed some very definate ideas on what a fillet knife should do. The very best designed filleting knife in my opinion is the Rappala. The thin flexable blade is needed to skin the fish. It is nesessary that it flex and return to straight. You lay the fillet skin side down, hold the blade parelell to the table and push down to flex the blade so it is flat on the table and slice forward, you skin the fish cleanly, separating all the meat from the skin. a nice sharp tip is also important. You need that when you are separating the meat from the bone. You need to feel the bones with your knife, tickle its ribs and make sure the bones stay on the carcass and not in your fillet. The handle shape is important. Any sort of guard is unnesessary and just gets in the way. All of your cuts are made with a draw stroke, so a handle that is wider at the butt helps you to hold on with a handfull of fish slime. I like Rappalas, they fit the bill perfectly, meeting all the criteria above. My uncle would laugh at me for buying them. He thought they were a waste of money and said I was buying half a knife. He was right. Steeling a blade two or three times a day, they seemed to wear out pretty quick. He made his with a much deeper belly and they would last a good long time. To make a short story long, I came upon an old filet knife I made years ago, It was pretty well sharpened down, so, having a few minutes to spare I knocked the blade out of it and made a new one about the same shape as it was when I first made it. It went a lot faster on the belt sander than on the wet wheel. I just started out to show the unique blade holder thingy. What would it be called? I scavenged it from an old,old bread knife with a wavy blade that I had made into a filet knife and sharpend till it was a nub. My uncle made the second blade for it and the one in the pic was the third. I fill the hole with cooking oil clamp a pair of vice grips on the ball, slide on the ring and tap the handlle on the anvil till it seats. It never moves till you have to knock it apart. I was thinking about fabricating my own (blade clamp?) and handle and maybe edge quenching the blade. Sorry if this was long and boring
filletknife(click4pic)