My darling (as long as her brothers aren't around) 10 yo daughter has expressed an interest in bushcraft-y stuff. She's the little girl in the video on Ron's site,
starting a fire with a firesteel. She has already gotten the hang of using a bow drill, at least to the point of getting some smoke going.
She's out of town these past two days at some girly thing, so I decided to make her a bush knife of her own. It's essentially a 2/3 scale version of the bush knives I'm already making.
Today I scaled the proportions down, made a template, cut out the steel, ground the bevel, honed it to get rid of the grinding marks while the steel was still relatively soft, heat-treated it, and now the scales are in place, glued and clamped.
She and her Mom get back tomorrow afternoon, hopefully giving me enough time to shape the handle and get a coat of finish on it.
Pics to follow.