Do new makers sample making different types of knives for skill?

[FullyTorque]

I'm currently working on my 12th knife (not counting knives using premade blades) and all but two of my first dozen knives have been different. Right now I'm just making them as a hobby, so it's more fun to do something different each time. I know that if I want to get better I need to a small run of maybe 6-10 identical knives, but I haven't decided what design to use yet. So far my favorite knife has been #11 a chisel ground santoku. Being a kitchen knife it gets used almost daily.

As far as ideas for knives; BF is an amazing source for inspiration and education. I spend a lot of time looking through the "Custom and Handmade Knives" board. If I want to make a certain type of hunter, skinner, or fighter, I search that board for examples and inspiration to help come up with designs.
The next knife I want to make is a small bowie inspired by Nick Wheeler's Concealed Carry Combat Bowies. I've drawn it up with a blade shape similar to Wheeler's style but the handle is more of an amalgamation of several other makers. Of course my knives all tend to deviate from my drawings quite a bit when the grinder meets metal and wood.

Also, read all the WIP threads you can. There are lots and lots of tips and tricks that you'll pick up. For example there is a bowie build along thread on C&HK board by Will Morrison that has an excellent walkthrough on handle shaping. I plan on referencing it closely for the handle of my next knife.

 

[tryppyr]

I find that each type of knife has something new to teach me. The basics may be the same across the styles, but there will be differences as well. Things you don't think about until a project forces you to do so.

For example, my first attempt at a blade was hewn from a thick slab of airplane grade titanium. A total waste of time, of course, but it taught me that using super thick billets is a mistake and that titanium isn't a good choice for blades.

After that I got very creative and made fanciful blades nobody would ever use. Those projects taught me I can use hand tools to create almost any shape I wanted, including 3D carvings. Not, in and of itself, the most useful skill when making knives, but it can come in handy.

After that I started settling in to making more serious knives. By then I had settled on hidden tang as a preferred type. However, due to limitations of my tools and talents, I had to find ways to cope with the challenges that were less than ideal. Some would say these were my worst knives, but during this period I learned key skills like how to cut neat slots into guards and how to fit them securely on a blade. I also spent a lot of time in the early days creating stacked handles with contrasting materials.

I discovered a love for daggers and push daggers. The dagger phase allowed me to learn how to use hand files more effectively in creating bevels. It also forced me to learn better hand sanding techniques to avoid rounding the center line on the blades. Making the quillions revived my metal shaping skills and gave me a sense of how to bend metal without having much of a heat source. The push daggers were fun too, because they gave me a chance to think about different handle designs and integral guards.

I think I approached things backwards, because only recently have I started making full tang knives (something most people do from the beginning). I've never been terribly excited about full tang knives, but I felt they were a necessary part of the learning curve for the hobby. I still suck at them, but I see now there are skills in full tang manufacture that don't get learned with the other types of knives I've made.

I'm not saying the path I chose was the right one. I'm not sure there is one right path for all newbies to follow. I will say that the path I chose kept me interested at all points along the way, and gave me a chance to find my passion. I worry that if I'd followed the classic advice of making 10 of the same knife I would have gotten bored pretty quickly... but since I didn't follow that path I'll never know for sure.

Do whatever fuels your passion. Learn whatever you can from each project. Listen to advice along the way, but don't let it kill the fire of your passion. If nothing else, the advice can sit in the back of your brain until you are ready to use it.