First blade!

T

tyano109

Joined
Jan 30, 2015
Messages
4
Just got my grinder last week and gave it a go on my first knife. I had a whole bunch of old files that came with a lathe i bought a while ago, so i decided to use one of these for my first attempt. It's definitely not perfect and with cell phone cams being so good now, it probably shows more of the imperfections than I would like! hah, but anyway here it is. Annealed it in the fire and heat treated with a propane torch. Handle is made from maple with some 3D printed red ABS accent pieces (I am probably going to stain the wood, just haven't had the time to go buy some stain).

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Congrats on finishing your first one. It is really a great first knife.

Your knife suffers from a problem that most first knives have...BHS...(blocky handle syndrome).
Rounding the corners of that handle shape a bit will improve the look and feel. You can still do this before you stain it.
 
I like it - I could use that every day.

Question though - to everyone at large. Other than skinning large animals and looking cool - what purpose does a deep curve in the edge serve? Other than skinners, knives that are made specifically as tools hardly ever have that. Is it just how we expect knives to look?

It does look cool though. Good execution from plan to product too.
 
Thanks guys.

@Stacy - I appreciate the advice. After hearing that and looking at the knife again, I see what you mean and I think I will work on it a little bit before I stain the knife.

@David - not sure I know what you mean. How else would you make the knife come to a point at the tip? I think on this knife in particular it may look like a very drastic curve because the knife is so short and the blade is wide.
 
I didn't intend my comment as a criticism of your knife at all, but you can certainly have a straight edged knife come to a point - chef's knives, coping knives, sloyd knives, a surgeon's scalpel, exacto knives, utility knives - all tools - all have fairly straight edges that still come to a point - a sheepsfoot blade is extremely handy and it doesn't really come to much of a point. Seriously though everyone should make the knives they want to make no matter what they are shaped like. Anyway I don't imagine there is a lot of demand for those blade shapes other than as actual tools.

No sarcasm though - really just a question - is there some use other than skinning that I'm not aware of for a deeply curved blade?
 
To answer David:
A curve cuts better in many situations. The curve places maximum force in the smallest contact area in cutting.
It can be very slight, as in a chef's blades, or fairly extreme, as in a skinner.

I believe what makes this knife look like it has a high curve is that the blade is short. If the blade was 4" long, it wouldn't look so curved.

Tyano:
The way to adjust the blade curve is the amount of drop in the point. An alternate way is to make the blade less wide.
On your knife, I think you did fine. Perhaps a tad more drop would have been OK, but on a very short knife you have to make some tradeoff.
 
A blade that curves widely to get to the point of the knife actually IS longer than than a straighter shape, just as a curved path is longer than walking as the crow flies, so it adds up to more blade.

Recently I realized with a start why sword blades appear to get bigger and bigger as they the blade is ground out: as the grind works its way down from the flats and into the edge zone, as it becomes more triangular in section, the square inches of shiny metal that appears to the eye actually increases! It's like an optical illusion, yet it really is there!
 
Great job on your first knife! I do agree with Stacy though and you should round the handle a little more, you will be suprised how much better it will feel in hand!
 
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