Knife Manufacturing Info

E

Evasion24

Joined
Nov 17, 2003
Messages
4
Hey guys, I am a knife enthusiast and a mechanical engineering student at Queen's university in Ontario. I just found this awesome forum while doing research on the net. Recently, I had to choose a product to research for my manufacturing course. I have to make a posterboard with diagrams and information on the manufacturing process. Naturally, I chose a fixed blade knife (hunting or kitchen knife for simplicity).

I have contacted a few companies and none have replied back with any information. I have about a week before this project is due. If anyone could provide me with info, charts, or diagrams it would help me so much. This is what I'm looking for:

1) Details about tooling, size, materials, smoothness, etc.
2) Details about process parameters including temperatures, displacements, and forces.
3) Manufacturing costs.
4) Cycle times.

My email address is adam_burella@hotmail.com
Thanks in advance!
 
Evasion24.

Welcome to BladeForums. There are lots of VERY knowledgeable people on the forums about all things bladeworthy. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them. But others who do know something about your subjects may not have the time to respond to you before your project is due.

However, you can do searches of the forums and find a wealth of information on just about all the subjects that you mentioned. Here are a couple of sites both inside and outside this forum to get you started and give you an idea of where to look.

http://www.bladeforums.com/features/faqsteel.shtml

http://www.crucibleservice.com/datash.cfm

http://www.agrussell.com/knife_information/knife_encyclopedia/

http://www.theforgeworks.com/identifi.htm

Good luck.
 
Much of what you've asked for, Mr. Evasion24, is proprietary. It's not the sort of thing that manufacturers hand out.

Information about hardening can be obtained readily from the steel manufacturers. Crucible Steel, as Mr. panella suggested, will be an excellent start for you since they specialize in steel for knives. Notice that they make steel, not knives. They're not going to tell you how they make the steel; that's proprietary. But they can give you a lot of information about how other companies use their steel to make knives. You might start by e-mailing them asking for an appointment to talk to one of their application engineers about this subject by telephone. You'll call them at the appointed time with a written list of questions in hand. That list will serve as a starting point for your interview. They may be able to suggest some additional resources and even put you in contact with the proper folks at some of their customers.

Keep in mind that there is no one way to make a knife. There are many roads that lead to Rome. So, you many find that there are many different processes. The choice depends a lot on volume. If you're a small manufacturer making a few hundred knives per year, you might grind them out of bar stock by hand. If you're a medium-volume producer, you may use a laser or EDM wire cutter to cut the basic shape out of sheet stock. And if you're making knives by the truck-load, you might stamp the basic shape out of roll stock.

However you do it, though, you're going to need equipment... equipment you'll buy from other companies. Figure out what that equipment is and who makes it. Then make inquiries with those companies. Again, they don't make knives, so they're much more likly to talk to you about how their equipment is applied to making knives. And, on their websites, you'll find great pictures of the machines in question.

The bottom line here is that no knife manufacturer is going to do your assignment for you. And why should they? If you want charts, diagrams, and information, you're going to have to find or make them for yourself. Who knows, you might just learn something about making knives along the way. If nothing else, you'll learn something more valuable, something that will help you throughout your career and your life: how to find information for yourself.
 
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