Forging is easy!

[Tinbasher]

Don't despair, Lucky Bob. Much can be done with just hand tools:
Wolfgang Loerchner
Arpad Bojtos

While those may not be your interest in knives, it is certainly a testament to what can be done by hand.

He does make great looking knives .
I just started my first hidden tag knife ,I have a buff,pedestal drill and a home made disc sander the rest is done using files and sand paper,I was given a slab of 316 stainless 3" X 5/8" X 6 ' long I had to cut a piece of it with a hack saw for the hilt then drill and file the slot ,I am starting to see why some of the makers charge so much for the hidden tang knives after two full days of work I got it to the glue up stage tonight. Sure hope this one turns out ok.

 

[tazzknife]

yeah, made a few mistakes, but I think that smaller knife will make a good skinner. LOL! Seriously though, I did learn a lot about grinding (especially hollow grinding), so it was a great night. Thanks again Scott for taking the time to work with me. As always, it was a pleasure.

P.S. My wife laughed so hard at the before and after pictures I thought she would split her sides!

 

[scottickes]

yeah, made a few mistakes, but I think that smaller knife will make a good skinner. LOL! Seriously though, I did learn a lot about grinding (especially hollow grinding), so it was a great night. Thanks again Scott for taking the time to work with me. As always, it was a pleasure.

P.S. My wife laughed so hard at the before and after pictures I thought she would split her sides!

As the great Andrew Carter (Robin Williams in Millenium Man) said, "One is glad to be of service".

Here are photos of the real knife. Yes, it really did get smaller. Mike practiced on some paint stirrers first. I had a small utility knife blank of 1080 steel that I had profiled out a while back and he and I went back and forth with it. I'd demonstrate the way that I did hollow grinding and then Mike would try it. It turned out quite nicely. I gave him some brass bar stock, brass pin stock and a small piece of mosaic pin stock and a piece of dyed stabilized birch burl to finish it out, bringing back what he doesn't use. He's going to determine where to place his pins and drill the holes and do some sanding on the blank to ready it for heat treat.

The forged knife was then ground mostly by Mike with me assisting a little bit here and there. Yes, it really did end up shorter, but will make a nice EDC belt knife. The photos attached will show how much shorter it ended up, since we had profiled a paint stirrer to match the "as-forged" shape and put a hollow grind on it. Mike is going to sand that some to get it ready for heat treat as well.

His first knives are going to be "keepers" right from the get go. I told him, "knifemakers don't make mistakes, they just make smaller knives!".