New here, I want to learn to make my own knives

R

Rdputnam

Joined
Oct 19, 2019
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Hello, I’m new here and I want to get started in making knives for myself and perhaps gift for family members in the future.

I have no idea where to start here. Everything is way over my head right now. At this point I am just admiring everyone’s work and trying to get a handle on the processes involved.

I was thinking about picking up some blanks and books and starting from there.

Would any of you be willing to share some info on good places to start? I am thinking kitchen and smaller utility/camp knives to begin with.

thanks!
 
I would recommend you watch ekim knives on youtube. He has a great series on making a fixed blade. I would start there. Before I could give any real advice I have a few questions.
1.what is your budget
2.what do you want to make
3.what do you have more of, time or extra cash
4.do you have any tools now
 
Buying a few blanks and putting handles on them is how I began. I was too cheap to buy a nice knife so I bought a Helle Temagami blank for $70 and started there. Now I have designed my own blade, and done the whole process except heat treating which I sent away for. There are a ton of ways to go. Read a bit, pick a direction and go for it. Other's will chime in.
 
I also recommend getting on instagram. Its a good way to talk to other makers and see whats going on. My instagram is stang_bladeworks feel free to message me there as well if you have any questions as you go.
 
Read the stickies and just go for it.
First make one with hand tools only. If you like it make a few more.
You can outsource HT if you like
 
Stang Bladeworks said:
I would recommend you watch ekim knives on youtube. He has a great series on making a fixed blade. I would start there. Before I could give any real advice I have a few questions.
1.what is your budget
2.what do you want to make
3.what do you have more of, time or extra cash
4.do you have any tools now
Click to expand...


Thanks for the replies.

I don’t have a lot of extra cash but I would rather put money into learning the craft than buying new knives. I’m happy with my F1 and Essees for the moment. So I can probably look at throwing a hundred $ or so from time to time at this.

I have a Henkel Classic chefs knife with a bad handle so I wanted to replace that with custom scales and sharpen properly and work the blade. That’s how this started. I would like to make some nice camp and chef knifes and work up to custom folders. My first real project will probably be a new chefs knife for my wife and a chefs knife for my father in law. Then a small folder for my dad.

I have more time than cash now for sure.

I have a lot of tools. I have worked on and built jeeps over the years. I have grinders, cut off wheels, hand tools, tons of files, drill press, jig and bad saws, a nice Prentiss bulldog vise (restores from early 1900’s sorry I’m proud of this thing lol) and various other tools. No welder at the moment of belt grinder. No budget for them currently either.
 
Hengelo_77 said:
Read the stickies and just go for it.
First make one with hand tools only. If you like it make a few more.
You can outsource HT if you like
Click to expand...

I was thinking about this. I saw a video on making a jig for edge filing and I think this would be a good route to go.

I’m clueless on steel and tempering etc.
 
OK,

Based on what you said I would begin with a simple steel like 1084. It can be heat treated at home. Again, ekim knives covers this in his series. You will need a drill press but I assume you already have one. Spend a little extra to get good steel. If you can buy precision ground stock I would. It will save you a lot of trouble with flattening. If its not perfect that's ok. If you epoxy your scales on it will take up any minor gaps. It is also the most cost effective way to attach scales. I would avoid wood or stag for now. Start with g10, it is the easiest in my opinion and it typically comes VERY FLAT. I would scribe your bevels and remove as much as possible with an angle grinder and make a file jig to finish them up. If you find you like this you will want a grinder asap because filing sucks. Apparently the craftsman 2x42 is not too bad and I think they are only a couple hundred dollars. O1 is another good steel to use. It can be purchased at most metal suppliers (like metal supermarkets) and it comes very flat already. Heat treating is a bit more involved but it can also be done at home. There is also nothing wrong with outsourcing heat treat but it can be pricy and there will be a lead time. Once you watch the ekim series and do a bit more research this will all make more sense. If you want to use pins buy a slightly oversize reamer as well to make things a bit easier.

Good luck and have fun.
 
Welcome R.D. Putnam.
Start by filling out your profile. That way we know where you live and a bit about you. There may be a maker near your town … or right down the street.

Next, read the stickies. Read all of them, scanning the parts that don't seem pertinent right now. They may have more meaning soon.

Make some sketches and post them in Shop Talk for the chaps here to help fine tune.

Glad you came here, it is a good place to learn knifemaking.
 
This forum helped me tremendously when i was first starting out, and still helps. I dove in and made what i would now consider a prison shank of a blade. Each knife, i picked one thing i wanted to improve upon. I searched online and tried to find existing info about that one thing and tried to apply that knowledge. If unsuccessful or i couldn't find anyone with the same problem as me, then i would post here and get an extremely helpful answer within a day. Baby steps. Knife making is a marathon, not a sprint. Take your time and before long you can make something less prison shanky.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Welcome R.D. Putnam.
Start by filling out your profile. That way we know where you live and a bit about you. There may be a maker near your town … or right down the street.

Next, read the stickies. Read all of them, scanning the parts that don't seem pertinent right now. They may have more meaning soon.

Make some sketches and post them in Shop Talk for the chaps here to help fine tune.

Glad you came here, it is a good place to learn knifemaking.
Click to expand...
When I designed my first knife it was a really cool process posting my first drawing and then getting feedback. I thought I had a really great design that wouldn't need adjustments! 4 or 5 revisions later it was awesome. Great input from guys with lots of experience.
 
Filing the bevels on your knives is not as bad as it sounds. On 1/8" thick stock, it takes me an hour and a half of cardio but I can usually get that part done in the morning before going to work. It's the hand sanding that is the real P.I.T.A. and the most time consuming. At first, when people would say that it gets faster with experience, I wasn't sure how as I thought sanding is sanding. But I can say that everything gets faster and cleaner with every knife you make. From the sound of it, you probably have everything you need to make a fixed blade. I say go for it and see what happens. I use 1080 so I can HT at home. For me, that's the most fun and visceral part. Merging fire and steel to make something useful is just damn cool! I always do my best to make the best knife I can. So even if it comes out looking like it was made by a newb (because it was) I am still very proud. And I think that is the point of it all. Just my .02
 
Respirator respirator respirator if your gonna even think about playing with any synthetic handle material.

Look up gough file jig on YouTube

Read all you can on 2 brick forges

Austenizing temperatures for various steels

Tempering temps for the above steels

Kevin cashens website is a treasure trove of knowledge.
 
A lot of good advise has been given. If you have a limited budget I would highly recommend outsourcing your heat treating needs. Yes some steels can be heat treated “at home” as people say. But even the most basic set up will cost more then sending a blade out to be professionally done. I am not a proponent of the toss it in your camp fire and quench in some random liquid. My thought is all that hard work you spent getting to that point and you just give it a botch heat treat. Just because the steel gets hard(ish) does not mean it’s a good heat treat or will hold a edge for any decent amount of time.

but I also recommend medium carbon steels for beginners. The 1075 from Alpha Knife Supply is really nice if your wanting to cut your own design out of barstock. We do provide blanks as well to people that don’t want to deal with profiling the blades. You just send us your design and we do the rest. Being that you don’t have a grinder yet you would get the blade back in the annealed condition. You would then file the edge bevels and send back to us for heat treating or attempt it your self.

welcome to the family, we are a friendly bunch; most times lol.
 
Thank you all for the tips and suggestions. I am wading through the stickies at the moment.
Luckily I found out a co worker will cut blanks for me on his water jet. Currently i am Trying to score a belt sander off of CL to get started. Most of my knives will be hand filed as suggested, I just figure I can use the grinder for jeep related and house related stuff while I figure the knife thing out.

Thanks again for the help. I will be posting lots of questions !
 
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