A great day

[ClosetotheEdge]

So, as most of you are probably aware, today is Friday - which is always a good day in my book because I get to spend some extra time doing the things I enjoy. Lately that has been making knives. I started making my first knife roughly two months ago and it was a slow tedious process. I had only files, sandpaper, bench vise, hand drill, and a few other hand tools. I had received my father's modest knife collection and began cleaning and refinishing some of the rougher ones. This cleaning and refinishing led to the urge to make a knife of my own. Obviously I did not have any blade steel so I resorted to making a file knife. I built a small charcoal forge (very primitive design) and went at it. I used what I had and it was an extremely fun process - File for the blade, salvaged oak flooring for the handle, stainless 16 penny nails for pins, and a poly finish. I was more than pleased with the outcome and immediately began the next.

I completed the second knife and began a third and fourth. I decided to purchase a few tools, considering the massive amount of time I have been pouring into this hobby( roughly 6 hours a night ). I work a full time job and I am also a full time student....so this is a huge time investment on top of those two. I bought a used drill press on craigslist, 1x30 harbor freight grinder, and a 4x36 grinder from a friend. this was quite the upgrade from my previous hand tools!

After doing plenty of reading on Bladeforums and with a suggestion from a member to get some actual blade steel - I decided to make a purchase of 1084 from Aldo Bruno. I also made a bid on some exotic wood scales on Ebay.

Weeellll. Long story short, my scales arrived yesterday and the steel today! I roughed out three profiles tonight, what a difference from working with files....

I just want to thank all the experienced makers on this forum. It has been a great source of information during the beginning process of this amazing craft.

 

[Will Leavitt]

Welcome to the journey.... Honor the people that taught you by teaching others.

 

[kailand09]

Pictures please! And congrats on making them, I'm about to make the jump myself. If you have pictures of the process that is lovely, the more I see and read the better before I start working. Not just me, but open info is what will better this world!

 

[ClosetotheEdge]

Kailand, unfortunately I have not been the greatest about documenting all the steps I have taken to get through a knife but I do have a few. Here are some I have of various knives...

Picture of the beginning of my first knife and a similar file to what I started with.

I little further along - fitting my idiotic idea of a handle. I decided to go with a partially exposed tang and then hidden...not the easiest thing to achieve with minimal tools.

The charcoal forge

Getting near finished

The final knife... nowhere near perfect but I was pleased with the outcome.

The second one I have basically zero pictures of the process but here it is

I made the pin myself

And like I said in the original post, after the second one I decided to get some tools to make the process less slow moving. Here are the tools I got and my setup in the garage.

I do not know if that is too many pictures but here is the last one. These are the current knives I am working on.

As you can see I kinda enjoy doing this Hope you have a great experience as well.

 

[kailand09]

Hey awesome work thanks for the pics. Inspiration that my first knife won't look like junk! I like them!