My first Knife

[Solvable]

Just finished my First knife, think I'm addicted to this hobby now.
1084 Steel, made on my Rikon 1x30 Grinder heat treated in a 2 brick forge, with black linen micarta scales.

 

[kobold]

Congrats and welcome to the forum! We never forget our first ones.

 

[AndrewH60]

Great start

 

[Solvable]

Congrats and welcome to the forum! We never forget our first ones.

Appreciate it. This forum has been very helpful.

 

[Solvable]

Great start

Thank you, I wish I could have gotten the lines a little cleaner, but I'm happy with it for a first project.

 

[d762nato]

Looks good for a first knife most likely better that a first knife if I were to make one. Welcome to BladeForums as well, and enjoy there's a lot to see and learn around here.

 

[Solvable]

Thanks, I'm sure I have a lot to learn

 

[Liquidm1980]

Looks great. Make sure to post the second.

 

[Billy The Hungry]

Looks better than a first knife to me!

Great job!!

 

[Londinium Armoury]

Well done, if you want to know a little trick for cleaning up edge bevels, I found Aaron from Gough custom knives home made file bevel jig very helpful. They are easy to make and cheap to set up. use your grinder to do all the hard work then use the hand file jig to get the lines perfect, you can also use it to completely set the bevels from scratch but that takes quite a while. It will clean up your bevel in about 5 mins though.

Here is Aarons jig build and demo

I built one myself they work very well.

 

[Solvable]

Well done, if you want to know a little trick for cleaning up edge bevels, I found Aaron from Gough custom knives home made file bevel jig very helpful. They are easy to make and cheap to set up. use your grinder to do all the hard work then use the hand file jig to get the lines perfect, you can also use it to completely set the bevels from scratch but that takes quite a while. It will clean up your bevel in about 5 mins though.
Here is Aarons jig build and demo

I built one myself they work very well.

Thanks, I'll give that a try on the next one. Is this more for files across the length of the blade or back and forth? This first knife was such a short blade 2.75" that is was tough. My next one I'm working on is a 7 inch drop point with a 3 7/8 inch blade, seems a little easier to work the longer blade.

 

[Londinium Armoury]

Thanks, I'll give that a try on the next one. Is this more for files across the length of the blade or back and forth? This first knife was such a short blade 2.75" that is was tough. My next one I'm working on is a 7 inch drop point with a 3 7/8 inch blade, seems a little easier to work the longer blade.

You want to use forward strokes lengthways along the blade from tang to tip in even strokes. You can prettymuch size up or size down your filing jig to suit any size blade. The one I make can do anything from a 3 inch blade all the way up to a 10 inch blade. The only thing stopping you going bigger might be the length of file you have, but it's possible to work it in sections. I fully hand filed a 5 inch blade that was 8mm thick with that jig, it took ages but it managed it. It's best suited for stock around 3mm+ though, the thicker the stock the more elbow grease it takes.
Honestly it produces very clean bevels though, it's capable of making knives good enough to sell, with very even plunge grinds.

I did this entire knife using the jig by hand with no power tools, I could have cleaned the plunge up more by draw filing it, but I quenched it before the file marks were drawn out, and the edge was around 64 HRC after tempering and it was skating the file and sand paper too much so I just left it. But it's possible to do a complete bevel grind full flat or saber to any angle with the jig, cleaning up grinds done on belts are a breeze for it.