quicksilver,
Welcome to the forums. I learned 90% of what I know about making knives (which still isn't that much) right here on this forum. My suggestion to you is to spend the time to read through the stickies at the top of this forum. There is tons of information there, some of it easy to digest for the beginner, and some of it seemingly over your head as far as knife making. Don't let that bother you. Read up on the metallurgy side of it anyway, doing the best you can to make sense of it. After you read it through and see it talked about a number of times, it will all start to come together.
On top of that, browse this forum daily. There will be tons of various questions that will answer many of yours or raise some more in your mind. Use those questions/posts as springboards for learning. Google is a wonderful thing and can turn up many answers. Search bladeforums by doing the following in the google search bar:
(your query without these parentheses) site:bladeforums.com
Anyway, before you ask, may I suggest 1084 or 1080 as great beginner steels. They are easy to work and the easiest to heat treat with limited tools. Otherwise, you may want to consider sending out your initial work for heat treating because of the heat control needed for most other steels. That mostly means working with air hardening steels such as stainlesses because most commercial heat treaters don't mess with oil hardening steels. As for tooling, you can start with simple files to shape a knife (along with tons of elbow grease and patience), or you can spring for a belt grinder for shaping (a lot faster, but it takes time to develop control). 2x72" grinders are the best IMHO for knife work, but they are expensive. Many people have gotten a great start with a Craftsman 1x42". A drill press is almost surely a must as well.
Anyway, just some suggestions that can get you going. Good luck, and again, welcome.
--nathan
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