A Homemade Survival Knife

If you ever find yourself stranded, whether it be in your car, in the wilderness, or at home during a natural disaster, a knife can be the one thing that saves your life. It can be used to make rafts, kill animals, help set broken limbs and cut firewood, among many other survival essentials. Making a homemade survival knife from materials you would find in nature is not difficult, and will serve you well should you ever need to recreate it in the wild or use it while at home.

Things You'll Need

• Rocks
• Bone
• Rope
• Wood

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Instructions

Rock Knife

• 1

  Find a decent sized rock that is elongated in the rough shape of a knife and you can comfortably hold in your hand. Most importantly, the rock needs to be of a type that can flake and break easily, like slate, or a rock that will hold an edge well, like flint or obsidian.

• 2

  Break a larger rock if you cannot find a suitable small one. Do so by dropping the stone onto another stone on the ground. Be careful while doing this. After you release the stone, turn your head and shield your face from any flying shards. Choose the choicest and sharpest piece you can. You may not need to sharpen it any more. If so, you have your knife.

• 3

  With the rock you found in Step 1, use a larger rock to chip off pieces at the tip. Hold the first rock near the base, well away from where you will be striking. Using the larger rock, strike at an angle against the first rock, chipping away pieces.

• 4

  Continue chipping for a few inches of length along both sides and on the back. Stop when you have something resembling a blade.

• 5

  Take a jagged rock and use it to flake off pieces from the first rock. Push this third rock along the blade edges, and flake off pieces of rock as you go. Do this for every edge until it is sufficiently sharp.

Bone Knife

• 6

  Find a large bone, like that of a deer or another large animal. An elongated bone, such as a leg bone, is best.

• 7

  Lay the bone on a rock on the ground. Shatter the bone by smashing it with another hard object. Be very careful to turn your head while you do this, as bone shards can be very sharp. It is best to shatter the bone at an arm's length.

• 8

  Select a sharp and well-sized piece from the shards to be your knife.

• 9

  Sharpen the blade by rubbing it along a rock. Do this for each edges on both sides. Rub from the inside out, along the flat of the blade, not the edge.

• 10

  Add a handle by lashing a piece of hardwood to the bone with a rope or a strong vine.