My first attempt at knifesmithing

S

Scara

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Jun 21, 2014
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So a while back I decided to get into knifemaking. It took a long time for it to happen, but I finally have a knife to show for it. My apologies for not doing step by step pictures, but I at least have pictures of it now. I wish they were better, but my only cameras are on my phone and laptop, and my phone isn't on speaking terms with my laptop. Length is just under 12.5". The original barstock was 1.5" wide, and the blade is 1/8" thick. The steel is D2. The blackish-gray stuff happened when I noticed that my stock was starting to rust while I waited to get started, so I sprayed it down with CLP and put it in a plastic bag. Next thing I knew it had turned the steel that color. If I ever heat treat it'll remove the color.





It's a little rough, since a lot of the initial grind was done on a power grinder's wheel. That didn't work so well, even after many experiments with different ways of grinding it. That's why you can see chatter on the flats. Eventually I just turned the bad grinds into something decent by hand with a set of files. That worked better, though I didn't and still don't have a great place to clamp the knife down, so you can see that the grind is not the same on both sides. One side has a good grind, the other one is kind of messy. Still, it does cut a bit. It's not razor sharp, but it isn't a butter knife either. As you probably guessed by now, this knife was not forged, it was done purely through stock removal. I'd love to hammer a knife out of stock, but that's beyond my means for now.

Also, you may notice the slight drop-point. That unfortunately was not part of the original plan. What happened was that I did something with the grinder that put a divot towards the tip, and I ended up having to remove some material just to get the tip back into some semblance of shape. Then the tip got damaged because several times I accidentally hit the tip with the files as I was going back for another pass.

Tonight I decided to wrap the handle in paracord so it would finally have a handle instead of waiting to put some slabs on it. I did a simple X wrap going down, and then when I had more cord left I did it again all the way back up. After I took the pictures I put one little knot in so it doesn't try and loosen itself and so there's less extraneous cord dangling around. Then I hit the back corner of the tang with a file so it didn't jab my palm. With that done I took a few pictures, and here we are.
 
Looks good Scara! Grats man! Dont forget to change "registered user" to "Knife Maker":cool: How do you heat treat D2? Is it similar to 5160? I like the shape of it with the raised back. It kinda acts like a guard eh?
 
I kind of like the raised back too. Damn that's a lot of filing and grinding though.

Cept for undoubtedly burning myself I think pounding the red hot steel would be more fun.

I don't know nothing about steel types or tempering or none of that though.

Now if you want to know what woods hurt the worst when you get a sliver in your paw, I'm your man.
 
Not bad, Scara, keep it up!

A 1x30 belt grinder can be had for about 30 clams from Harbor Freight, and it's better than nothin'.
 
ndoghouse said:
Looks good Scara! Grats man! Dont forget to change "registered user" to "Knife Maker":cool: How do you heat treat D2? Is it similar to 5160? I like the shape of it with the raised back. It kinda acts like a guard eh?
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I haven't heat treated it, but there is a company in my hometown that does heat treat with fancy super-controlled electric forges. Apparently D2 is an air-quenching steel, but I don't know how to do that. The paracord wrap is not permanent, I could easily remove it send it in, and redo it after a heat treat, so I may yet have it sent in. Problem is it's asymmetrically ground and the company says they won't heat treat if there's too much asymmetry.

The raised back wasn't quite what I'd planned. I'd meant for the back to be raised less and the front edge curved more, but I screwed up the tang by cutting it out at the wrong angle. It was my first or second time using an angle grinder, and I didn't realize how quickly the steel eats up the cutting wheel. The raised back does provide a place to put your thumb. I may need to hit it with the files a bit to smooth it out.

And could I actually change my description to Knife Maker? I've only made the one. I've started on another though.



This is after I cut it out but before I started hitting it with the files. It was supposed to be a Bowie with the tip in line with the tang, but I cut at a steeper angle than intended so it's still a Bowie, but not quite how I'd intended. When it first happened I was mad at myself, but since then I've looked at it and said that it's not ruined, it's just different. Not sure what kind of handle I'll put on it. I'm not sure what I'll do, I don't have a setup that lets me grind both sides while clamped in a vise, so I've been freehanding it, but I may wait until I can make it back to the gunsmith's shop with its tools (I trade labor cleaning and organizing in exchange for time and training on his tools), or if I'll just keep freehand filing or invest in a better setup.
 
Nice work!! I've made a knife or two myself, but only stock removal as well. The second was on request by a friend after he saw the first :b Finishing the cord wrap is always the hardest part for me, usually it turns into a lanyard.

Freehand on the belt is the best way to do it in my opinion. Take the training wheels off, and if you fall off, get back on and keep peddling!
 
Nah! You dont want to change your title yet. You gotta pay gobs of money and then sell knives to pay for your title then. Long as you arent selling here I think your good. Im not sure about your steel but usually that color tells you what temper it has. If your filing away on the steel without problem then It cant be too hard. Theres a color chart you can look up and see what "red" is. My chart says 520ºF for temper. That seems kinda hard tho to be filing on. Bookie might know! Where yat doc?
 
SingleGrind said:
Nice work!! I've made a knife or two myself, but only stock removal as well. The second was on request by a friend after he saw the first :b Finishing the cord wrap is always the hardest part for me, usually it turns into a lanyard.

Freehand on the belt is the best way to do it in my opinion. Take the training wheels off, and if you fall off, get back on and keep peddling!
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I think I'll freehand it on a belt, the only issue is that the belt I currently have access to is not at my home, but at the gunsmith's shop.

I may yet redo the wrap with a lanyard instead. One thing that surprised me was the number of people who post wrapping methods that talk about taping the blade so you don't hurt yourself. What I did was I clamped the knife down in a vise and started wrapping. It's more secure, more stable, and safer. I really hope I'm not the first person to think of this.

I've also had someone ask me to make a knife, but they wanted a cleaver, and that would require getting a huge chunk of 5160, and that wasn't feasible for me.

philllll, I've looked at that very grinder. I'm probably moving in less than a year, so I don't know if I want to invest in something that big, but at $30 I could just give it away when I move. It would also mean I could work from home instead of having to get a ride to the shop when I wanted to work.

And Bawanna, I can tell you that an O1 shaving in the side of a toe is nicely painful. The work-in-progress Bowie I posted put one of those in my foot. I guess that's what I get for filing in bare feet. That may have been the same night I had an ER trip because my right eye was massively irritated and in pain. I was worried I'd somehow managed to get a sliver in my eye, but they didn't find any foreign objects in my eye. All they did was put numbing drops in and search for the cause. The numbing drops helped a ton because I hadn't been able to close that eye, but they numbed it enough that I could close it, which is what needed to happen so the irritation would go away. In the end I decided to throw out my old pillowcase because the irritation started when I put my face down on it. I imagine tropical hardwood slivers are mighty painful, being hard and often slightly toxic.

And kamidog, I've filed on it and it takes a lot of filing so it can't be too soft, but it's probably fairly hard.
 
I also clamped the blade in a vise, after wrapping the blade in a paper towel to protect it.

There are tons on wrapping techniques, some more visually appealing than others.

Here's a pic of the one given to my friend. The wrap I did on here here is hard to see, but there's a layer of gutted woodland camo paracord under the black. I really like this style of wrap, and the base layer can be done the same as the second, or a contrasting color. The grind is a convex chisel, or single grind and it was shaving sharp when it left my hands :)



Keep it up with the pix! I do love seeing what other people make. Such a creative bunch here!
 
Could you give me instructions on how to do that style of wrap? I've also considered doing chisel grinds, but I'd probably do a right-hand chisel because my vise setup works better for the right side when doing it by hand. You can see that the right side of my knife has a cleaner grind, so clean that my roommates (who used to work as ornamental blacksmiths) said that the right side looked like it was done by machine and not by hand. If I were doing a chisel grind with a belt I'd probably do a left hand grind because that's easier for me as a right hander. I'm more ambidextrous than most, but grinding and filing are strictly right handed activities for me.
 
SingleGrind said:
I also clamped the blade in a vise, after wrapping the blade in a paper towel to protect it.

There are tons on wrapping techniques, some more visually appealing than others.

Here's a pic of the one given to my friend. The wrap I did on here here is hard to see, but there's a layer of gutted woodland camo paracord under the black. I really like this style of wrap, and the base layer can be done the same as the second, or a contrasting color. The grind is a convex chisel, or single grind and it was shaving sharp when it left my hands :)



Keep it up with the pix! I do love seeing what other people make. Such a creative bunch here!
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I love that knife, that damascus look with some stag hanging on it, takes me breath away just thinking about it.
 
Scara said:
Could you give me instructions on how to do that style of wrap? ....
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I just did a Google search on "paracord wrap instructions" and got 207,000 hits with 23,000 videos and an equally enormous number of images.

Whatever kind of wrap you might want do to, the instructions are out there.
 
davidf99 said:
I just did a Google search on "paracord wrap instructions" and got 207,000 hits with 23,000 videos and an equally enormous number of images.

Whatever kind of wrap you might want do to, the instructions are out there.
Click to expand...

I've seen them. I happen to like that particular style, and was hoping to find instructions for that one.
 
One mini-tutorial coming right up! I left out some steps to save time. There really are a million and one ways to wrap handles, but I like this one best, I think.

I had this little Benchmade stripped, waiting to get bead blasted when I come across some of that time stuff y'all always talk about. Also have a tool box for all my paracord stuff with plenty of pieces of cord. What luck!

Step 1 is to gut some cord and wrap it round the handle. Nothing fancy here, just tuck the beginning and end as you feel necessary. Keep in mind the second wrap will hold the first down too. I learned this little trick to melt the end and press it flat with the lighter, if that makes sense. Now I'm wishing I took pics of that.. Oh ya, I also wax/oil the base wrap before going over it, especially on a carbon steel blade. This base wrap isn't necessary, but it makes it look better.

Ok where was I? Right, the wrap. It's kind of hard to explain but try to imagine tying a regular granny knot, but instead of one string going under the other, it goes around. I'll post the pics below, which do a much better job explaining this process.

First some tips: The main thing that I learned, is that this is not a square knot. That is to say, no "right over left, left over right." If you start out left over right, you ALWAYS go left over right, even when you flip to the other side. It looks wonkey if you mix it up, you'll notice fast. Also, pull everything as tight as you can, especially over bumps. Loose knots will "wander" a little, aside from not looking good. Every few knots, you'll want to use your fingers or something wooden to push all the cord tight together. Oh ya, and the center line. It looks weird if the ridge is S-shaped; keep it nice and straight.

As you can see, I didn't follow any of my own advice on this quick wrap, which is why it looks jacked.

Starting off, I'm going left over right for this one









Flip to the other side, note still left over right. Gonna speed up a bit now.





Back to the first side,





And I'm out of tutorial cord!



Finishing it off is the hardest part. If theres a lanyard hole it's much easier, but either way I'm sure you can figure that part out.

Here's a pic of the first knife I made, but it was not my first handle wrap. Maybe second or third.. :D This one is moss camo with black underneath.



Bawanna, I have another one of those blanks lying around somewhere. If you've got some stag, I could always grind it down and send it out your way! :)

Edit: Well now...I guess that mini-tutorial did not turn out so mini!
 
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So I experimented with that cord wrap. One side turned out great, the other not very good. I discovered however that this cord wrapping technique would be very quick and easy with a vise that holds the blade straight up instead of clamping it flat against a surface. I think it can be done really quickly by holding onto the cord well and then just using circular motions around the blade. I may do a video at some point.
 
I cord wrapped my Pen Knife for a bit trying to bulk up the handle a smidge. Just tied the front and a dab of super glue, ring around the rosie till I got to the other end with a few dabs of glue along the way and tied and glued that end.
Kind of like Forest Gump-"when I got to the other ocean I just turned around and kept on running"
Worked pretty nice. Also nice when I felt guilty for doing it, it came off pretty easy with little effort also.

Then I checkered it, no undoing that but I like it as is now anyhow, course I could always wrap it again if the desire ever struck.
 
Checkered Pen Knife huh? Don't think I've seen that one!! Post pics when you get the chance please, I'm all curious now. With your track record, I'm sure it looks great
 
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