How much design work do you do?

jdm61

jdm61

itinerant metal pounder
Joined
Aug 12, 2005
Messages
47,357
I was reading another thread and a new guy was advised to draw out the pattern for a knife and show it and it got me to thinking. I have been attempting to play around with knives since 2005 and as best as i can recall, I did not use a full pattern for any knife until maybe as late as 2011-2012 and those were for the first full tang stock removal knives that i have attempted. I have subsequently developed some patterns for my kitchen knives using a couple of Japanese knives that I bought and a couple of attempts for a full tang field knife in CPM 3V, before I got one that i liked, but beyond that, if you look at my website, none of the knives on there currently ever had any pattern made beyond some chalk/soapstone marks on my anvil for stuff like blade length and to make sure that I have forged the hidden tang out long enough. The times that i have used a pattern coincided mostly with my first attempts to make knife sou he same "model" prior to that, they were all different some way eve though the designs were similar. heck, most of the time, I determine the tang length by laying it across my 4 inch wide anvil to see how far over the edge the end hangs. I have drawn pictures of knife ideas over the years, but most of those have never been transferred to a pattern used for making the knife. Most of the time when i do that, I just put the idea in my head and then go pound something out the kinda looks like what I drew. What do you guys do?
 
Since my drawing comes across as crayon scribbles; I do as you mention, soapstone on the anvil. I think if I were a stock removal maker I would attempt some pattern of some type. But forging is such a creative exercise, I just let it flow and see what comes of it.

Fred
 
Nearly every knife I've ever made started out as a drawing, whether on notebook/printer paper, or AutoCAD. A lot of times, especially if it's a design I like and not a one off for a customer, I'll even make a hard template and make a batch of them.

FWIW, Autodesk Fusion 360 is absolutely free for hobbyists and startups (under $100k/year I wanna say) and makes 3d modeling of a knife design pretty easy and friendly if you learn a few tricks.
Definitely a learning curve, but for the price,, it's unbeatable. ;)
 
Every knife I make has been designed in Coreldraw. Once I have the profile like I want, I'll experiment by simulating different handle material, liners and pins. Once everything is completed, I print out the profile on heavy card stock and use scissors to cutout the outline which is then used to trace the profile onto the bar stock. I even locate the pin centers by punching through the layout lines on the card template. I can print a new template anytime in a matter of seconds.
 
I personally have done both - just winging it and with a pattern. So far I've only made stock removal knives though.
I do think the ones where I had a pattern turned out a little nicer.
I'm going to check out this Autodesk Fusion software. Sounds great!
I've been using an app on my iPad called TouchDraw and there is a little learning curve there as well, but I like it.
 
Im a "looks good enough" kinda guy so I never used patterns. I always just did what looked "right"..
 
I always start with a hand drawn sketch. I have drawn all my life and my degree is in illustration. It is the best way for me to capture the spirit of what I want the knife to be (or what the knife wants to be). Then I clean it up in the computer and print it out. The sketch may capture the essence of the design but it isn't always proportionally correct. Printing the cleaned up design allows me to see real world dimensions like handle length, where finger contours fall, actual blade length, handle drop, etc. compared to my hand. When it looks right I cut it out and mount it to a Masonite panel and profile it the way I would the steel blank. That becomes my template for stock removal blades. Forged blades are more of a conversation between my hammer and the anvil. I have some say in the matter but not always the last word.
 
I don't use a drawing much for working knives because I'm familiar with them. When they cross over to an art piece I make sure I sketch it out first.

Hoss
 
Hoss, when I started trying to mess with kitchen knives like you do, that is when I used patterns even for the forged hidden tang wa handled knives because it just seemed that the blade shapes and dimensions needed to be very consistent from knife to knife, which is not as much of a problem when I engage in quasi-artistic foolishness like hammering out a bowie to fit a particular piece of stag by drawing the center line of the carver on the anvil and then forging the tang to match the curve. :D
DevinT said:
I don't use a drawing much for working knives because I'm familiar with them. When they cross over to an art piece I make sure I sketch it out first.

Hoss
Click to expand...
 
Now to be fair, i have used a lot of pictures of knives to guide and inspire me. They just weren't ones that I had drawn or taken myself. It was more like I'm going to try and forge something that kinda resembles that. ;)
 
The placement of multiple pins is helped a LOT by having a template. Until recently, i have made very few full tang knives with multiple pins. Think like 3 in 8 years. But I have maybe 25-30 lying around right now waiting to be completed, so its a different story. Numerous templates and LOTS of Corby bolts.
NC Biker said:
Every knife I make has been designed in Coreldraw. Once I have the profile like I want, I'll experiment by simulating different handle material, liners and pins. Once everything is completed, I print out the profile on heavy card stock and use scissors to cutout the outline which is then used to trace the profile onto the bar stock. I even locate the pin centers by punching through the layout lines on the card template. I can print a new template anytime in a matter of seconds.
Click to expand...
 
Oh boy, I pretty much have to sketch everything out. I do stock removal and as an engineer I have to plan the build out or I start to hear ringing in my ears. I do "experiment" though and let some "natural variations" (read !@#$ ups) occur and sometimes they turn out better and improve the pattern. This may be my ignorance speaking, but it seems like you have more freedom forging since material isn't necessarily removed but rather moved around organically until you hit the grinder. With stock removal... once metal is gone its gone!
 
It's kind of 50/50 for me. Some times I just go out and "let the steel talk" to me. But lots of times I will sketch somthing up because I'm going after somthing particular. I have quite a few knives that are my staple so I have templates for them. But once the profile is traced onto the steel that's the last time I touch the template. Customers love sketches and thy love 3D models even more. Like righ now I'm working with a customer that wants 3 skinners for his 3 little girls. Working on handle shape so it will fit them now and in 10 years.
 
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I am able to draw, but a printed profile introduces a frame that tricks my mind and the actual feeling/proportions of the real knife comes somewhat different than visualized.
Also, as good as i am drawing i'm much better to get the correct curves by forging, filing or grinding, so handling the 3rd dimension into it you end with the whole design in your hands. Forging adds a couple of degree of freedom
 
I draw mine also but the biggest reason I use a pattern is so that all of my knives are the same. If someone sees a knife of mine and wants another one then I know I can make the same one again, within reason, and they will know what they're getting. I used to just wing it but couldn't get consistent results.
 
I think it is very important to make knives from patterns. Repetition is very important to your brand. My old boss Dr Wang used to say that if you can't repeat something then you can't do it. But thats not the reason that I think repetition is important. IMO it is important to repeat patterns so that your customers can memorize their names and collect multiples of the same model. As a business, it is very helpful to have folks driving demand for a certain model.
 
I draw out most every knife I make, sometimes is fun to do a free style knife without a pattern but usually the knife is drawn out completely on paper at least-even one offs

I used to just draw it best I could then scan it and print it, but now I usually hand sketch something I like, then put it in a 2D CAD (I like DraftSight) as a reference image and then draw it that way. It's easier to modify and cleaner to have it in CAD
 
If it's a kitchen knife I'm profiling myself, then I scribe some lines right on the steel and go from there. If I'm waterjetting, then I'll get a few examples in-hand and draw it all out on the computer.

For experimental projects, I sketch them out completely before I do anything.
 
I use CAD to develop all my knives the last couple years. I think my customers like to get a nice to scale representation of what they are going to get. It is also very helpful b/c I have every detail of most of my knives already backed up into the cloud for future reference. With that being said, I am all stock removal and I kinda yearn for the day when I can try forging and just go with the flow :)
 
If I'm doing a design I will have four or five drawings with different features, then make cardboard cutouts so I can feel the differences, and a bit of tweaking is easily felt in the cardboard. Then I hit up steel, and because I suck, am slow and inconsistent at getting shop time, I hope the finished product is close.

But it's also fun to see a knife in a scrap piece and let the ideas flow on the grinder.
 
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