First Knife Build.

A

Alaska_Guy

Joined
Mar 14, 2014
Messages
70
Hello everyone,

I do wood working as a hobby and figured I would get into building knives as I enjoy nice high quality knives, but never have the money to buy the ones I want. :D

I own a decent bark river and I am a huge fan of drop points knives.

So I decided to try making a 440c hidden tang knife for my first attempt. I used some scrap walnut and maple I had laying around the shop because I really didn't know what to expect and didn't want to burn up some high dollar wood on my first knife.

It's a simple drop point, I need to polish the bolster and the blade has some nicks in the top by the spine. But I really don't want to go through the sanding phase and polishing again. I don't have a standard belt sander that most use for knife making. I sanded everything by hand and polished with a sewn polishing wheel and a loose polishing wheel with green compound.

I also buffed/polished the handle before staining/finishing the handle. I plan to add a couple more coats to give it a little more of a sheen through out the week.

I more than likely did a lot of things wrong, but for my first knife I am very happy.

I started with making the knife blank designs out of wood and then settled on a design and below is the finished product. It's taken me about 3 weeks to complete.

I wish I would have taken more pictures through out the process. Next time I will make sure to do so.

Ok, on to the pictures...

knife_blanks.jpg

photo_7.jpg
 
i4Marc said:
This might be better posted in Shop Talk. Nice job.
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I disagree, this is a perfect place for it :)

in future efforts, it would be nice to see some further contouring of the handle.
 
I used a standard belt sander for the contouring of the handle. I flipped it up side down and clamped it to my bench so it acted like a 3" wide belt sander. Some wood working guys think I am nuts, but I use dial calipers... I used them to determine the wood thickness from front to back. Then I simply just took a little off at a time and measured again.

I put on a coat of wipe on poly last night and plan on eventually buffing the handle out to a glass like finish.

Thanks for the kind sentiment, I have lots to learn and look forward to improving on my techniques and design
 
you should try using rasps and files for contouring; it's slower getting to where you want, but also slower getting to where you don't want :)
 
If your using bare would I wouldn't polish the wood prior to putting a hard coat type finish on it. I wouldn't go any finer than 220.
 
Thanks guys.... Being a wood worker I can say the 220 is a good rule of thumb, but doesn't pertain to all woods. Some types of wood are fine at 220, others like walnut need to be sanded finer... Face grain on walnut is very porous and requires filler IMO. I use 400 grit wet/dry paper apply water and create a sanding slurry. This helps fill in voids in the wood along with raising the grain before buffing/finish coating. Other people use colored wax or beez wax to fill walnut.

I did use files and rasps to round over the handle. Figured I would try and keep it somewhat on topic for this forum section and not explain exactly how I went about everything. But yes wood files and rasps seemed indispensable.

I sanded to 2500 grit for a gloss like finish for the brass and steel. I used the stock removal method as it's much cheaper and less time consuming than forging.

Again, appreciate all the advice as I am still learning.
 
Alaska_Guy said:
Thanks guys.... Being a wood worker I can say the 220 is a good rule of thumb, but doesn't pertain to all woods. Some types of wood are fine at 220, others like walnut need to be sanded finer... Face grain on walnut is very porous and requires filler IMO. I use 400 grit wet/dry paper apply water and create a sanding slurry. This helps fill in voids in the wood along with raising the grain before buffing/finish coating. Other people use colored wax or beez wax to fill walnut.
I have found that as long as you get any sanding lines out you can start to finish. The courseness gives the finish something to grab and will less likely have the potential to peel if the wood is real smooth.

Trick I learned on walnut gunstocks, when the urethane starts to get thick/cure rub it in to fill the pores, just becareful not to leave any ridges/lines as this can create more work sanding. To me this gives more depth because its clear vs filling with something not as transparent. However, it isn't as feasable to do this on projects such as cabinentry.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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