Roadkill Knife

A damascus knife made exclusively from car and salvaged roadkill deer.

I find inspiration in the cycling of nutrients found in nature. Life grows from the dirt and then dies and turns back into dirt. Scavengers, moving water, microbes, etc., keep the flow of life churning along. Where these processes intersect with human habitat, it often feels like the cycles are a bit stunted. I think about this when I see trash in the forest and when I see dead critters along the road. I feel some obligation to push our waste back into the great-life-stream.
Maybe I'm overthinking it a bit, but it is simply awesome to turn garbage into something beautiful and sharp. That's what this knife is. A little bit philosophical and a lot a bit cool knife made from trash and stagnant nutrients.

The knife was hand forged from a rusted and abandoned car door found along an old logging road. Strips of car door panel were cut and carburized (carbon added to transform a soft steel into one which can be heat treated and hardened), forge welded into many layers and then forged, heat-treated, polished and etched to reveal the blade shown.
Roadkill deer antler, bark tanned deer skin (tanned with the bark of a Western Hemlock tree), and plastic accents from the trunk of my Corolla, form the through-tang handle. The bolster and pommel are steel from the leaf springs of an old truck's suspension.
The sheath of this bushcraft knife is bark tanned, roadkill deer leather, sewn with real deer sinew (tendon, in this case from along deer's backstrap) twisted into cordage.

Blade length: 4"
Overall length: 8 ½"