RE4 Krauser Knife

Here is the process I followed to try and replicate Jack Krauser's knife from Resident Evil 4.

Step 1: Inspiration

One of the knives that I’ve always wanted to own is the one used by Jack Krauser in the game Resident Evil 4. The knife is only seen for about 5 min in the game, but it looks so cool that I had to have it. Though the game came out quite a long time ago, it’s only now that I felt the urge to try and reproduce it for myself.

Step 2: Create a Template

The first step in the process was to take the still above and turn it into a template that I could trace onto the steel to cut. After tracing the knife in the still, I was left with this template. The only problem that I ran into was that the piece of steel that I had available wasn’t quite wide enough to make it to scale without making it rather small over all so I decided to thin it out just a bit so that I could fit the steel.

Step 3: Cut and Clean Up the Profile

Using a cutout of the stencil and blue layout dye, I scribed the pattern onto a 2 in wide piece of 5160 steel that I had available. Once scribed, I cut out the general shape with a metal cutting band saw and cleaned up the profile with a belt sander and some rotary tools.

Step 4: Grind the Edges

Once the profile was cleaned up, I used a belt sander with 36 grit sandpaper to grind the edge and the false edge almost completely leaving about a millimeter left to grind away later.

Step 5: Normalize

Before the quench, I normalized the steel 5 times by bringing it up to temperature and cooling it in the air until the color was lost.

Step 6: Quench

After the normalization, the knife was brought up to temperature again and quenched in warm vegetable oil.

Step 7: Temper

Following the quench, the knife was tempered at 450°F for about 2.5 hours.

Step 8: Sculpt Handle

The handle for the knife was initially sculpted with polymer clay in the general shape of the handle pictured.

Step 9: Make Handle Mold and Pour the Rubber.

I made a mold for the handle out of silicone rubber. The mold was made with the handle still on the knife so that the fit would be perfect. Before pouring the rubber, I drilled 5 holes in the tang so that the rubber would have something to flow though and grab onto while still liquid. I also finished grinding the last of the edge with high grit sandpaper during this time.

Step 10: Remove Knife From Mold

After the rubber cured in the mold, I pulled it out and started cutting away any extra material with a scalpel before finishing the general shape with rotary tools.

Step 11: Clean Up the Handle and Polish the Blade.

Once the handle shape was formed I polished the knife with a Scotch Brite wheel and covered the whole thing with a layer of Renaissance Wax to protect it.