Any advice as to how a 13 year old can make a knife blade?

Boy Scouts had a book of ideas, instructions and rules.

Does 4 H have a book on how or what he has to do himself ?


I'd start him off with one visit a week and homework each week
The book,

Custom Knifemaking: 10 Projects from a Master Craftsman​


Have him do sketches and come back with changes

Have him make cardboard cutouts

Have him drill press, hacksaw, file out of super soft annealed steel like Starrett O1
build the bevel filing jig

have him file

Have him watch all the Nick Wheeler hand sanding videos
have him sand
 
The boy and his mom came over today. I think we all had a very good time. The boy brought a couple of knives he had made. As might be expected they were crude, about like what I made when I was his age. He was eager to learn, very polite, and realized the importance of safety.
I gave him a 1/8" piece of W-2 steel and had him scribe a blade shape on it. I was going to have him go home and cut it into shape with a hacksaw but ended up grinding the profile for him. I had him mark parallel lines on the blade edge.
I let him drill two holes in the blade handle and let him make a small cut on the metal bandsaw. He will take it home and use a file or maybe an angle grinder to make the bevels.
Next week they will come back and we will go from there.
 
Tom Lewis said:
The boy and his mom came over today. I think we all had a very good time. The boy brought a couple of knives he had made. As might be expected they were crude, about like what I made when I was his age. He was eager to learn, very polite, and realized the importance of safety.
I gave him a 1/8" piece of W-2 steel and had him scribe a blade shape on it. I was going to have him go home and cut it into shape with a hacksaw but ended up grinding the profile for him. I had him mark parallel lines on the blade edge.
I let him drill two holes in the blade handle and let him make a small cut on the metal bandsaw. He will take it home and use a file or maybe an angle grinder to make the bevels.
Next week they will come back and we will go from there.
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I was surprised no one said the solution i thought would be a great fit in this scenario

push stick grinding w/ a workrest tim hancock style

keeps the hands and fingers a pretty safe distance away from the belt, doesn’t really require both the steady angle control and strength to hold the blade to the belt without the risk of the belt grabbing it and pulling and is fairly intuitive for a new person to learn since where you push with the stick is where you remove material and all the angle control is done with the stick.
 
with the exception of profiling and starting the guide 45s what travis demonstrates in this vid is pretty easy to follow and keeps the hands fairly clear out of the danger zone

 
Tom Lewis said:
I have been contacted by a family whose 13 year old son would like to make a knife for a 4-H project. I am willing to help but am having a hard time figuring out how he can make a knife blade. It takes awhile to learn to grind a blade and a 36 grit belt on a 2x72" grinder can be dangerous. In fact all machines can be dangerous and I don't want to see someone hurt in my shop.
Any suggestions would be welcomed.
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I've done several classes with children that age and even one that was 10 years old. What I do is tell the parent (and a parent is required to be there) that if the child does not listen to safety instruction or acts dangerously or carelessly in the shop they will be asked to leave and expected to do so without argument. That has never been a problem. Additionally I can say that before we enter the 'dusty' area of the shop I start with safety instruction regarding tools, dust and noise. I also explain that because of the noise and the limited peripheral vision due to the masks when I need to guide them I will tap them on the shoulder. At that tap they should back away from whatever tool we are using and pay attention for a moment. Then at each tool I start with safety, then to posture/stance, then show the step on my own blade, then allow them to practice on a practice blade, then they move onto the knife they intend to finish.

Its very rewarding to teach a kid. I recommend it.
 
Here is a "first Knife" thread I have posted. I also did one 21 years ago with my grandson Zeph at age 11, before Steve became Zeph's step-dad.
"Zeph's First Knife" thread has lost the photos. Zeph's was a hunter similar to Steve's, with a stabilized buckeye burl handle.

I'm still searching for other photos of youths who made their first knife in my forge. Hopefully, they were not on the old computer that crashed and died with no recovery of the files and photos possible.

Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith

Thread 'Steve's first knife'

My son-in-law Steve has the knife making bug bad.
This is his first knife. Forged in an atlas forge and ground on the TW-90. He did 90% of all the work. I am really proud of him. He is a good listener, asks questions, and knows when to back away and reconside something. He has been forging up a storm at his new shop starting lots of blades and useful objects ( like tongs) to get his skills honed. He will be joining us here as a member soon. This Sunday we will start on a sheath. He even cracked a smile over this knife.

Blade - 1084
Handle - stabilized curly maple
Corby bolt fasteners...
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1769879996215.png
 
That ain't how it works.

Kids are a pack of dang sissies nowaday. You gotta put 'em to work. Back in my day 13 was plenty old enough to have calluses thicker'n a hog's hoof, smoke a pack of Winstons a day, and lose a body part in war. Ain't no coddlin' 'em gonna get a knife made.

And there's only one way to get 'em to make knives for e-commerce, and that's straight out of iron ore.

First thing you do is get 'em to mine coal. They'll need a lot of coal to smelt the iron and forge it into a knife.

AJcaRHb.png


Look at 'em. Havin' the time of their lives.

Next you hand 'em a shovel and tell 'em to get to diggin' that iron ore. They need a lot of ore, the hole should look like this when they git enough:

a3k8N2d.jpeg


Builds character.

Then tell 'em to dump the ore into a barrel, pile on a bunch of coal, and light 'er up. Have 'em blow through a pipe into the barrel to heat it up enough to melt the iron. The coal also puts the carbon in the iron so's it's steel. Keep 'em a-huffin' and throwin' in coal for a few days, and then they can dig out a lump of steel from the bottom of the barrel.

Now they can take that there steel lump to the smithy and ask real polite to use the hammer n' anvil to forge it into a knife. And they need to bring their own coal, and be dang sure clean up that shop when they're done.

DsoWrXm.png


Never wear shoes while 'smithin, it slows ya down and you cain't even tell when your foot's on fire.

Now that's how you get a 13 year old to make a knife. Why even wait till then?

LFVLf4b.jpeg


Never to young to start. Now git to diggin'!
 
That first picture is what they called "Breaker Boys". They worked over conveyer belts full of coal and rocks and spent hours hunched over picking the rocks out of the coal and breathing the coal dust. They didn't live very long.
 
seems like it worked out well:cool:👍
 
Hindsight 20/20 yes, child labor was bad, but it helped families advance or even survive. Seems like moving up through generations, many kids now don't ever work, even on family tasks. Things gained and things lost!
 
Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc. should have paid the adults a fair wage, then the children would not have had to work.
 
Today the Boy and his Mom came over again. He had used an angle grinder and then sandpaper on the blade. It looked pretty good. The Boy has a lot of patience. Today we fitted up a handle. He used the drill press, the bandsaw, a disc sander and a 1X42 belt sander. He is careful with the machines and is learning a lot.
 
I feel like I’m always the contrary one on here but earlier today I just handed my 14 year old a stack of blanks that I’d screwed up, turned my grinder on low speed with a 120 grit belt and said, “If you hit the belt with your finger it will hurt. Dunk it when it hurts to hold on to ” He wore the belt out and had a great time. Still has all his fingers too.
 
Tell them the child needs a tetanus shot,will probably cut himself and definitely lose some skin. If they’re okay with that, roll on.
 
ScarFoot said:
I feel like I’m always the contrary one on here but earlier today I just handed my 14 year old a stack of blanks that I’d screwed up, turned my grinder on low speed with a 120 grit belt and said, “If you hit the belt with your finger it will hurt. Dunk it when it hurts to hold on to ” He wore the belt out and had a great time. Still has all his fingers too.
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I did the same with my 8 yr old. He wanted to make knives but I was busy with another project. I handed him a blank, gave him some general instructions, turned the 2x72 down real low and watched as he started. My project was maybe a few feet away so I was able to keep him in sight as well as look up and observe every once in a while. He’s starting to get the hang of it.
 
Tom Lewis said:
The boy and his mom came over today. I think we all had a very good time. The boy brought a couple of knives he had made. As might be expected they were crude, about like what I made when I was his age. He was eager to learn, very polite, and realized the importance of safety.
I gave him a 1/8" piece of W-2 steel and had him scribe a blade shape on it. I was going to have him go home and cut it into shape with a hacksaw but ended up grinding the profile for him. I had him mark parallel lines on the blade edge.
I let him drill two holes in the blade handle and let him make a small cut on the metal bandsaw. He will take it home and use a file or maybe an angle grinder to make the bevels.
Next week they will come back and we will go from there.
Click to expand...
Great to hear.....Good luck on this road..👍
 
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