favorite/ least favorite part of knife making? why?

I hate the paranoia i feel before i hand someone the knife i made them....:confused:
I love it when they dont throw it on the ground and slap me in the face......:D
 
Favorite, hand shaping/carving the handle and fittings. And also the first time I put together all the finished parts of a take down.

Least favorites, probably hand sanding like many. Since I grind so few knives, grinding bevels is also a love/hate thing.
 
hand-sanding the belt marks out at the first grit. Once that's done it's not so bad.
 
daizee said:
hand-sanding the belt marks out at the first grit. Once that's done it's not so bad.
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+1 Exactly! After the first grit the others go fast and feel more rewarding.

Love profiling. I guess it's seeing it take shape for the first time and removing all that metal is kind of destructive which is something we love from way deep down in our nature.
 
Favorite: Packaging up a knife to mail out followed by making Kydex sheaths.
Least favorite: Flattening nonsurface-ground CPM steels. Ugghhh
 
clockworkfish said:
ill start with my fave which would be heat treating because you need to be in the moment or else everything else will go to shit.

least fav being hand sanding the blade to a high grit (1000+) just takes forever to get rid of those itty bitty scratches that nobody in the general population will ever likely notice in real life...

so how about you? perhaps we can make things easier for each other and lessen how hard stuff is.
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To help me see scratches, I use a 500W halogen light, pointed at the ceiling, to reflect and diffuse light.
 
Favorite: Initial cutting and profiling, I like seeing my ideas take shape. A close second would be the final sharpening because I know that the knife is done.

Despised: Grinding the bevels, this seems to be where I make the most mistakes. Followed by everyone else's least favorite of hand sanding.
 
daizee said:
hand-sanding the belt marks out at the first grit. Once that's done it's not so bad.
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You got it. Sometimes I go all the way down to 100-grit by hand if I've left a bad scratch or seven on the grinder. Once those are gone, 220 isn't too bad, 400 only takes a little while and after that it's a piece of cake.

My least favorite part might be stopping finish-work... most of my clients prefer a basic hand-satin. But I know very well that once I'm at that point, it's only a little more work to get a really nice 2000-grit polish.

My favorite part... it's a tie between getting money in the door and product out the door, and hearing back from a happy customer. Repeat customers make you feel ten feet tall. :)
 
My favorite part is usually when I first see a piece with all of the parts together. Least favorite depends on the knife but probably the most dreaded is working plunge cuts on the grinder, that is by far the most stressful 5 minutes I spend on a blade. I grind without jigs or guides of any kind and this is the part that usually knots my short hairs, if you know what I mean. A tiny mistake can really set me back at this point.
Hand sanding is tedious but predictable, and hard to screw up once you've found a routine that works for you.
 
Justin King said:
My favorite part is usually when I first see a piece with all of the parts together. Least favorite depends on the knife but probably the most dreaded is working plunge cuts on the grinder, that is by far the most stressful 5 minutes I spend on a blade. I grind without jigs or guides of any kind and this is the part that usually knots my short hairs, if you know what I mean. A tiny mistake can really set me back at this point.
Hand sanding is tedious but predictable, and hard to screw up once you've found a routine that works for you.
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+1 I agree with everything you've said.
 
I really enjoy the metal working aspects- forging, making damascus, grinding, polishing, sharpening ect. I also like shaping the handle ect.

I least enjoy leather work, glue up, and bolster fitting. Also picture taking can be a struggle.
 
I like looking over a finished batch the best. Just before taking pics and putting it up for sale. The week is over. We did it.



bladsmth said:
Hand sanding. I often have a box full of blades to sand, and delay as long as I can. I will go and grind a dozen blades , forge for hours, and shape handles all day long....but hand sanding is drudgery. That is why I use a Scotch Brite belt whenever i can. I would rather do togi than hand sand ( and togi is about the most time consuming, mind numbing repetitiveness that there is).
I know a person at my church who needs work terribly. When I finally get the new shop set up, I am tempted to train him to hand sand and let him do it all. I would consider it money well spent.
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I started to get corpal tunnell a couple of years ago, and hired out my sanding. My hands are fine now, and the sander has been trained up in drilling, and profiling as well now.
 
Least favorite: Making sheaths. If we're talking about just the knife then it's finishing the steel because it's time consuming.

Favorite: grinding the primary bevels. It just feels good to eat away some steel with a 36 grit belt and I think that's the step where a piece of metal really starts looking like a knife.
 
Screwing up sucks the most lol, and I do that alot. Other than that my least favorite parts are the ones I know I could do better / faster with better tools lol. EX: I can't get into the finger side of a contoured handle with my grinder. If the profile of the finger side is anything but flat its all angle grinder, files, and sand paper. I get bored long before all of the scratches are cleaned up and radii perfect.

Favorite part? sharpening the finished product. Especially simple steels. 1084 takes such a wicked edge so easily. It goes from no edge to push cutting paper in 10 minutes. Also makes me feel good if it eats up my coarse grit stones in the process. Sucks that the stone is worn, but lets me know the heat treat came out decent.
 
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txwoodchip said:
I hate cutting parts at the band saw.

I enjoy most of the other aspects...I've even learned to enjoy hand sanding to a certain extent although I'm not all that good at it.

Phil
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Ditto. My HF saw is noisy and slow, albeit faster than a hacksaw! Plus, when I'm working on thicker steel like this piece of .212 CPM 154 I have right now, takes forever!

My favorite part is heat treating. I do it at dark and I love watching the steel change colors. After all, if your heat treat isn't good, you're just working with a pointed piece of steel with fancy wood on it. To me, HT is where you go from a hunk of cold lifeless steel to a useful tool. It's where the steel gets its soul and comes alive to become a knife!

Don't mind the hand sanding much. It's kinda relaxing, but I don't do as much of it now as I use to.

My other favorite is sheath making with leather. I've made about a dozen or so Kydex sheaths and they're so cold and impersonal. No character at all. Leather is not only beautiful, but has a very warm and inviting character and a joy to work with (most of the time ;) ). I love that leather smell in the shop after I've made a few sheaths. Wish I could bottle it up! Leather and steel baby!
 
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I hate leather work and stopped attempting it.Other than that the dust is what i despise.It's friggin' everywhere!I use a gas blower to sweep and clean every couple days.
 
I think I dislike heat treating the most because Im so afraid of screwing it up.

I think finishing a handle and finish sanding are the least stressful of everything involved,therefor my favorite.

Actually my favorite part of making a knife is daydreaming about how I WANT it to turn out. :D
 
oic0 said:
EX: I can't get into the finger side of a contoured handle with my grinder. If the profile of the finger side is anything but flat its all angle grinder, files, and sand paper. I get bored long before all of the scratches are cleaned up and radii perfect.
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Hope I don't derail the thread, but get one of those spindle sander adapter things that you can put in your drill press, like this one Delta Spindle Sander Kit. As long as you don't push really hard you won't damage your drill press. Harbor Freight has a kit for much cheaper and works just as good, I just couldn't find it on their website.
 
Favorite: Grinding a lock and hearing that sweet sound like a Colt SAA hammer cock.
Least Favorite: Grinding a lock and not hearing that sweet sound like a Colt SAA hammer cock.
 
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