New to knife making..Need advice

A

abrig005

Joined
Nov 26, 2012
Messages
18
Hello, I would like to start knife making.
I plan on starting by buying blanks and making my own handles from different wood (shaping the handles on my own).
Can someone tell me the tools I will need.
I would love to make some ironwood and snakewood handles. I read that these woods are hard to work with.
Any suggestions on working with these woods?
Also I would like the handles to be shiney like a gun stock. What is the best way to achieve this finish.
Thank you very much, Anthony.
 
This is pretty much how I got started too. i bought some nicely made bades (very expensive ones, or so it seemed to me at the time), and put handles on them.

What you'll need depends on how you plan to work and where you want to take the hobby from there.

I started with a bunch of old files, a couple of vises, and a lot of different grits of sandpaper. When it came time to speed up the work I bought a Harbor Freight 1 x 30 belt sander for faster shaping of the handles. I also bought a HF 4 x 36 belt sander for flattening things out. Each belt sander requires a few grits of belts, so I bought what was available (from HF and Tru Grit) and figured out what I needed to stock.

When you are ready to go beyond just making handles you'll need a real grinder, as those belt sanders are BARELY up to the task of working on blades. So if that is ultimately where you want to go, you might think about making that investment now.

One thing to consider... if you are like me, starting out as you describe will enable you to compartmentalize your thinking about the task of knife making. When i design a knife now I design the blade first, then once it is made I design the handle. Most knifemakers have a more integrated design strategy, but learning to make handles for blade blanks sort of liberates you from the need to do that.

- Greg
 
Welcome to Shop Talk.

Filling in your profile will help us help you.
Things like how old you are, what you do for a living, skills and hobbies, location, etc.

Starting with blanks or knife kits is a good idea. Knifekits.com has a lot of them, as well as most all the knife catalog suppliers ( Jantz, Texas Knife Supply, USA Knifemakers, etc.)
However, starting on expensive and complex woods is not a good idea. Start with a piece of Pakawood or one of the other laminates, or a piece of stabilized regular wood ( spalted maple, box edler burl, buckeye burl. and many more). There is also nothing wrong with plain wood - maple, walnut, cocobola, african blackwood, etc.

The work can be done almost completely with hand tools and sandpaper. The finish depends on the amount of work you put in the sanding, and the wood type. Using oil finishes can give you the "gunstock" look. Walnut is a good wood for that finish.

Use this search engine to fine most all of the topics you are asking:
http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=011197018607028182644:qfobr3dlcra
 
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