I'm Making My First Knife/WIP

Brian Avila

Brian Avila

Joined
Jan 2, 2011
Messages
1,286
Well after looking at all the knife makers, drooling over knives my whole life and asking questions I will make the plunge and say I am going to make my first knife. If I say I am going to do it and have this spot to post pictures and questions then it will be easier than just keep reading and just think about making it. You have to do it and practice to get it done and to make nice knives, so here it goes.

I have been reading and talking to stacy so here it goes.....

I work outdoors and I am in the woods for my job doing fish research so I am really in love with the bushcraft and outdoors knives.

After thinking about it I want to start of with a bushcraft style drop point knife but I will make it a EDC. I figure a smaller knife is better to start off with, which means the blade will be 3" - 3 1/2" because I live in Colorado. Plus I could use it every day.

I like wood working so I was originally thinking of some type of "loud" wood for scales, Koa or some type of burl, but after seeing some of the Micarta handles and talking to Stacy I think I will go that direction. I think Micarta will give a better grip when wet, more so than polished wood. I was thinking more along the lines of a "loud" bright color of Micarta. I want the scales and handle to be formed to the hand and fingers and I hear that working with Micarta is bad when sanding so I will have to use a mask etc?

Because I will be using it every day and I work with fish it will defiantly be around water so I guess I will go for stainless steel my first go around (CPM-154).

So now all I have to do is think of a pattern, draw it out and post the pics for you guys. The only thing I am worried about is making something that resembles what someone else has made, I don't want to step on anyones toes so I am sorry if I do.

I will work on the pattern this weekend and post pics so you guys can comment and help me out on my first build.

I look forward to the comments and help.....
 
I wouldn't worry about 'stepping on anyone's toes'. Draw it up how YOU want it. If it happens to look like someone else's, so be it.

I am a fan of the bright scales, too. I'm really interested to see how this looks and goes! Be warned, files work....but man is it tedious. If one knife is all you are making, that is all you need. If you plan on making more....look into some other tools. A cheap angle grinder can help with cutting out profiles, grinding, and polishing.
 
I hear you.

If I was in a different spot in my life where I could afford all the good tools I would go that direction, but this is my first knife and I just got married so I will do it all by hand. I like working with my hands that way anyways.

I will think about it tonight and sketch some stuff out and I will get it going. The only thing I don't know about is posting pics to the forum, that will be a new one for me.
 
You will have to upload the pics to Photobucket. From there you go to your photo album, then simply click the text in the 'direct url' box under the picture. It will copy it to your clipboard and you can paste it into the window that pops up when you click the pic icon along the top of this reply box ^^^

Something to think about when sketching up a design, keep away from sharp or right angles. Mainly around the guard area. I forgot and had to change my first blade after finding out it can lead to stress fractures, in the steel, during heat treatment.
 
What do you guys think of this?

IMG_1250.jpg


I would use Silver Corby Bolts, hopefully 1/4". The blade width is about 1 1/8" and I was thinking about using 1/8" thick steel.
 
After looking at what I had I decided that I wanted to widen the blade. This time I also showed the holes that would be in the tang to reduce the weight.

IMG_1252.jpg
 
Well drawn. Flows nicely. Look forward to seeing how it turns out. I'm a sucker for drop points. I definitely like the wider version better.
 
Decent drawings, very practical


You could make up a wooden model.
Some makers recommend using paint sticks.
 
TheWeatherman said:
After looking at what I had I decided that I wanted to widen the blade. This time I also showed the holes that would be in the tang to reduce the weight.

IMG_1252.jpg
Click to expand...

If you want to lose even more weight. Try tapering the tang. I'm only new to this too but sometimes with small blades where the handle is longer, holes alone don't balance it. That might be hard to get right with hand tools though. I've got it easy because I'm using my dads old 150mm wide belt sander which fits the whole handle on.
 
Jimping starts with a J buddy! Make sure your files you use for making Jimping are not edged. You basically want to make half circles in the spine of the knife
 
Looks good Brian. That is almost exactly the pattern I use to teach a new maker.

Suggestion:
I would change the angles at the front of the scales. They will most likely be sanded away or worn down quickly, anyway. A smooth curve is far better than three facets. Trust me on this one.

Problem
One problem with enlarged drawings is the scale looks good until you reduce it to size. A quick check with a ruler and you will see that the image is 11" long and 1.75 wide ( on my screen, anyway). That will make for a much narrower blade than 1.5" when reduced to size.The size between the handle and blade is off scale too. The drawn handle is 50% longer than the blade, but the size ratio is only 25% longer (3"/3.8").
Another problem with enlarged sketches is holes....you have six holes in the handle. If the smallest are 1/4", and the larger ones 1/2", you could not fit them into 3.80" as drawn.Three Corby Bolts in less than three inches is overkill, and bad design, try using two bolts. Just take out the center bolt and use two 3/8" holes between the two Corbys.
Also, the blade width shown is 1.5", but the aspect drawn shows it as being only 1" wide by scale. I think you will find a 3" long blade that is 1.5" wide is very fat. Try 1.25" and I bet you end up filing it down to nearly 1" bu the time you are done.

Step One
Get a ruler and several sheets of light cardboard....and a pencil with an eraser.
Draw it up on a sheet of cardboard. Cut it out with scissors and see how it feels. Make changes until you like it. I usually have the maker send me his actual template to use as well as the sketch.
 
I don't make knives (well maybe someday), but i do design things. You may want to do your sketches on grid paper. this way you can draw to scale fairly easily and on-screen collaborations won't suffer from the inconsistencies of monitor size/resolution.

I'm pretty sure Michaels, Joann's or any other art supply shop would have it.

I like the cardboard idea although i wonder if he used those "fun foam" sheets that are a specific thickness, that he could layer until he has the actual spec thickness of the blade.

again, i'm not a knife maker, but as a designer these are usually the steps we would take for a low-tech/low cost prototyping.

so maybe:
grid paper booklet
mech pencil
ruler
xacto knife
semi-firm foam sheets
 
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I was wondering how those pictures would turn out. What I did was take some line paper and made boxes on it for scale they were square etc. So all the dimensions are to scale on a piece of paper, and I did use a ruler. However, to get it on my computer I took a picture with my camera but transfer the design to a plain piece of printer paper because I was using yellow lined paper. Not only that but I couldn't get a good picture strait on so the pictures is at an angle so that would change the aspect as well.

I did drawings of 3 or 4 different blade widths, 1", 1.25", 1.5" and 1.125" and the 1.5" blade width. The first picture is of 1" because I thought that was looking ok but the more I thought about it I didn't like it as much because I started to look like a steak knife to me. So I made to blade wider to the 1.25" and that looks right to me for some reason. (So that was a typo on the blade width it is ~1.25".

I measured the width of my hand this morning and I thing I will change the shape of the bottom of the handle to make it fit better with my fingers and I want to tweak the front of the blade shape a little.

After saying that I will reduce the bolts to 2 and leave the lanyard hole. I think I might try scanning the picture in and posting that so you guys can see the scale. The scale is ok on mine and I still think that everything would fit in the handle.

I will make some changes and post the picture and then work on the prototype.
 
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Ok I tweaked the design so you guys can comment on it before I make a prototype out of cardboard.

The blade width is ~1.25" not 1.5". I reduced the number of bolts to 2 one up front and one at the end. I left the lanyard hole. I still have .5" weight reduction holes though. I changed the shape of the blade a little and the handle.

I scanned the drawing with a scale this time and saved it as a pdf then turned it into a jpg so hopefully that will change the problem of the scale for you guys. Let me know what you think.

Knife.jpg
 
Personally I don't really care for the jimping on that particular model . It's such a small area, you're looking at what like a 1/4" I would just ditch it if it were me. Also I don't think you're going to find the handle will be all that comfortable with that shape. Like Stacy suggested, transfer it to a piece of cardboard, and "use" it for a while. Spend a bit of time with it as if you were going to be handling it as you plan on using it. I think you'll find that hump near your index and middle finger to be uncomfortable. That's the beauty of making cardboard templates first.
 
xtestifyx said:
Jimping starts with a J buddy! Make sure your files you use for making Jimping are not edged. You basically want to make half circles in the spine of the knife
Click to expand...

Haha, I really didn't know that. Just starting..... feel kind of stupid now.
 
Good thing I am not really doing anything today. So I started cutting out prototypes out of cardboard to see how they feel in my hand. The first proto. did feel right in my hand. That little hump was a problem and the handle was a little to short. So I redid the handle with no hump and I made it 4" long. Here are some pictures and a good design that feels good in my hands.

IMG_1265.jpg


IMG_1261.jpg


IMG_1262.jpg


Knifedesignfinal.jpg
 
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