just a thought... how'd you get started

S

sgtking

Joined
Jan 19, 2015
Messages
44
I was just sitting thinking about designs and wondered how or what all of yall on this site get started in making knives. I came across it completely by chance and just thought it would be the perfect hobby bc of my love for the outdoors and the fact that I never go anywhere without a knife so why not make my own. But back to the question. How'd you get started?
 
I was spending hundreds of dollars on knives and always found things that I wanted to modify. So I decided to sell off a bunch of them, go buy a $150 Craftsman belt grinder, some belts and steel. Then spent lots of time on the grinder. I remember my first freehand passes with the steel on the belt. I was like "how the heck do they do this with any precision??!?!". Over time, things got better.. much better. Put in the time, reap the rewards.

When I wasn't grinding, I was reading/learning about knifemaking. It's just a hobby, but very rewarding to take raw materials, add your creativity and end up with a artful tool. I've always been one of those guys that says "I wouldn't pay for that.. I could make it myself", even though my toolbox sucks.

I make a few bucks hear and there, but the biggest payoff is when you get compliments on your work, for me, that is the end game.
 
Found a couple of my pocket knives and tried to make a fixed blade out of the design.Just open it up and you got a perfect patern.
 
I was out hunting rabbits with my son and I found a spike antler drop and I thought to myself that would make a cool knife handle, so I went home got on the intronets and it exploded from there
 
I inherited my love of knives from my father who's a retired tool and die maker. I've been on this forum for a while and finally stumbled upon this sub-forum. I read on here everything I could and took plenty of notes. One day I decided to take the plunge and was about to pull the trigger on a craftsman 2x42 when a miracle happened, a VS KMG came up on CL about an hour from me. $950 later I had a fully loaded KMG and a bunch of belts. Best investment ever (spiritually not financially because I'm still much poorer for it).

I never would have tried it had I not read how "easy" it was right here. Thanks BladeForums!

Mark
 
one day I decided to make a knife, so I did. Then I decided to make a better one, and that's what I'm still doing.
 
Let me start by saying I am a mechanic by trade and have also worked construction. I'm the type of person that looks at something and says to myself "I can build/make that". I have built furniture, cars, trucks, done some gunsmithing ect, and consider myself pretty handy and a quick learner. So, I had a local knife maker that I had bought a few knives from. I had been over there a few times and was interested in the process so I got to asking questions and of course thought, I can do that. So I started with some blanks from jantz and just put handles on them. One day my father-in-law said he had a grinder that a friend of his used to make knives with and said I could have it. I figured it was not a 2x72 like I was looking for so i said, " I will come take a look one day". So I ride over, and there is a rusted and dusty 2x72 belt grinder that another knife maker had made. I cleaned it up and put a bigger motor on it. It has an 8 inch serrated wheel. It took a bunch of screw ups and money to get my first halfway decent one. And now I'm hooked. It's an awesome hobby and for those that can do it for a living, it must be wonderful. My dad always told me, "if you have a skill or trade and two good hands, you will never go hungry". So I am a long way from where I want to be but I'm learning. My friend (the local knife maker) says I'm not a wanna be knife maker, I'm a gonna be knife maker! I am one lucky guy to have someone that can teach me in person and I never miss an opportunity to ask questions.
 
We actually had a coal forge and anvil where I grew up. So we would mess around with it. And of course being boys you made weapons. Then a couple of decades passed. Last year I just got interested in it again.
 
One day I watched a youtube video of a kid forging a railroad spike into a knife, in his driveway, with a BBQ rigged forge, and railroad track anvil. I took note of that being something really, really cool that seemed simple enough for a kid to do nicely like that, something to look into at some point perhaps.

A couple years later I started watching game of thrones, and started noticing how cool the knives and swords were. Blacksmithing isint even heavy in the story, not even the books which I read, but it was enough of an aspect to make me say, hell yeah lemme try this finally.

Dug a pit in my back yard, ran a pipe into the bottom, which I attached to a hair dryer and fed tons of raw pallets. Got a chunk of I beam and buried it half way into the ground, and swiped a couple heavy hammers from the shop at work. From there I started messing around with hot steel and evolved from there for a couple years.. I'm still not 10% as good as most of the guy's here, but I know the science behind it all and the steps at least even if I can't execute it all perfectly yet.
 
I always loved knives. I loved them since elementary school when I bought a Buck folder from a friend at school for 50 cents, maybe before that. Growing up I would go to gun shows with my Dad and brothers and walk the rows of tables. Then we'd pass the knife table with the good stuff (not the import crap) and there I'd stay talking to the seller and asking questions as my family disappeared down the aisles out of sight. I'd tell him about my plans to make knives some day. One year the purveyor said that if I wanted to make knives I should talk to this knife maker a couple of hours from me. His name is Joe Szilaski. Well, I was renting an apartment from a particularly distasteful man and his mommy so a knifemaking operation there was a no go. Five years ago I bought my own place and since I'm the boss here it was time to try it. I tried making a knife with files but that sucked dirt and I lacked a game plan. Well, I finally looked up Mr. Szilaski and took a forging class with him. It was the best thing I could have done. Joe isn't just a knifemaker, he's a Master Smith as well as a good teacher and a funny guy. I've taken a couple of other classes with him covering other knife building skills and each one was money well spent. Those classes gave me the foundation and game plan I needed. I supplement those classes with the knowledge I've gained here and through other research. I'm slow as hell but I'm very cautious and try to be as meticulous as I can. My love of knives has never been stronger.
 
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I've always been into knives and thought to myself that when I retire I'm going to make knives. I started to think that instead of waiting till I retire I could be building a skill in the interim so I watched videos online and built a filing jig courtesy of Aaron Gough. Realizing that I'm lazy and don't like slow laborious work I bought a TDM 2x72 and a jig and started grinding. Someday I hope to be a good knife maker.
 
I got started by following mod project threads here at Bladeforums. Then I made a couple of file knives following the threads here at BF posted by Sylvrfalcn. Eventually I bought a bar of steel and did a batch of 6 knives. I sold 5 of them and gave one to a soldier. It was definitely a blessing in disguise. I hated my career as an engineer, and was deeply depressed at the time. It seemed like knifemaking came to me as an answer to a prayer. The more knives I made, the less I felt the depression. Two years and ~200 knives later I got laid off and went full time with knifemaking. That was May 1 2009. A month later I showed my knives at my first Blade Show. I sold 9 pieces that weekend. When I started full time I did 10 knives per week. I was in my basement. Eventually I had to leave the basement for more space and less destruction of my home. Nowadays I have 9 employees, and this facility is cramped. Last year we went from 40 knives per week at the beginning to 60 by the end of the year. This year the plan is to maintain 60/week while also bringing the sister production line into being. The plan right now is to release 4 models in 2015. The first one is all in house and being assembled now. This all happened right here at Bladeforums. The Georgia Custom Knifemakers Guild, and Bladeforums are how I learned to do this. This is all very humbling and the responsibility of having employees is very stressful. But I still love making knives, and pray about it a lot, and draw knives a lot too. My knives aren't master works, just working tools, and I have much better makers in my collection yet I still like the knives I make. I still collect them, especially any of the old ugly ones from the beginning. When I get down on where my knives are I like to look at those, and see the progress. Its a journey and I hope to do this for years to come if I am lucky.
 
It was 1961, and I had just read a book on blacksmithing. I rounded up a piece of RR track, an old Hibachi, a vent pipe elbow, an old fan, and a Western Flyer wagon load of coal from along the RR tracks.
I cobbled together a forge and started making knives and things from rebar and any odd metal piece I could find. I shaped them with a pair of channel-lock pliers and a 16oz. ball peen hammer. An older gent in the neighborhood came over to see what the smoke and noise was. He watched for a while and then went home...only to return with two buckets of blacksmith tools he had brought with him from the farm in SC when he moved to Norfolk during the depression. He showed me how to use them, and told me in his thick SC accent that the best "stahl" for "nahvs" was from "tarns". I could figure out "Steel" and "Knives", but "tarns" had me stumped. I asked what they were and he looked at me funny and said, "You know, Tarns, for Caaah Jocks",.... while he pumped his arm up and down. Suddenly I realized it was "Tire Irons". There was a junk yard nearby and the owner said I could have all I wanted from a barrel full he had behind the shack that was his office. I took a wagon load home. 54 years later I still have my first knife and some of those tools.
 
I was prospecting, selling lapidary materials and cutting stone for a living when I saw a knife with a stone handle... I then decided I wanted to make a knife like that! It would be just like cutting stone I thought.

I didn't want to start with a kit so I looked into making knives. I started to understand the process a bit when I was in my garden cutting zip-ties from some rebar arcs i had set up. I decided I still wanted to make a knife but no stone handles and made for real use or even hard use. At that point I started grinding literally all day every day until I had a pile of knives ready to heat treat.

I made a few knives like I wanted, sold the second one and got three orders for that knife. In the meanwhile I finished the batch and got about 20 more orders. I literally quit my lapidary business and went full time right from the first knife. I was and am still completely obsessed with making knives! :D
 
I was skinning too many raccoons and needed more sharp things, so I built one. I thought it was cool, so I started collecting tools and built a small shop. Then I lost my job and had to move. Four years later I was at a gun show in June and saw a table of custom knives. I looked at them hard, and thought, "I can do that." I started reading here and other places. I made 19 with files and sandpaper, then got a Craftsman 2x42 for Christmas. The rest is history.
 
In 2010 a friend who sells Koa wood at shows asked me to go to the OKCA show in Eugene Oregon with him. I had collected pocket knives my whole adult life. My interest in pocket knives had started to fade. But at that show I was intrigued by the custom knives. It couldn't hurt that we sat next to Bruce and Kay Bump. When I expressed interest Bruce encouraged my to try it. I didn't buy any pocket knives which surprised my wife, but I came home with over $100 in 2X72 belts. When my wife asked what they were for I told her "Those are for my new knife grinder". I had not bought one at that point but did soon after. I took my first knives to the Boise show that fall and to the OKCA show the next year. I put them in the hands of great knife makers including Bruce Bump, Ed Caffrey, Chuck Richards, Ed Fowler and any other knife maker who would look at them asking for advise/criticism. I did this for several years and took my beatings like a man, but they came less often in the following years. Jess
 
I went to the Becker Spring Gathering in Tennessee last year and one of the principal activities that weekend was a knife making class. Several experts donated their time, talent and even materials, and Mr. Becker provided his shop and any of us who wanted to got to make a knife under expert guidance. Many thanks to Mr.Becker, James Terrio, Matt Tackett, T. M. Hunt and others. So far I have made about 15 knives that I actually consider complete and am having a blast.
 
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