Finished my first knife!

[MyNameIsBo]

Nice! Making a knife is a mixture of feelings. Acomplishment, pride, etc. And if the knife looking thing performs as such for a long time... much better!

Try to find yourself some carbon steel stock so you can make a wider blade (allows for a more acute bevel angle if you go full flat grind). Otherwise you are limited to the shapes you can get out of files (which are usually thick and narrow). Leaf spring also works well (glose to 5160 steel) but they tend to be very thick.

If you want to make fancier handles, try making homemade micarta! It is easy and you can get very nice patterns. Besides, it doesn't have grain, does not split, does not shrink or swell.... so you don't need to be as delicate as with natural materials (wood, antler, bone)

Mikel

Thank you so much! I certainly felt all those things, and a touch of frustration I'm glad to finally have one completed. He's gonna let me know how it performs, and bring it back to me for sharpening as needed.

I have a whole bunch of old files, including some larger ones, so I'll keep expiramenting and see what I can do until I get some known steel stock.

I actually just saw a post about homemade micarta yesterday and I'm intrigued, I'll definitely be looking into that!