Pics of your first knife thread question

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Soilarch

Joined
Oct 15, 2007
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I'm looking at some of your guys' first knives. I can't help but ask. How did you guys go about building that first knife? Did you find someone to show you the ropes? Just books and videos? Just forums like this?

I'm greatly impressed. I figured most would be...um...utilitarian...which apparently is not the case!!!
 
I study knives waaaaaaaayyyy too much but mine was done this way. Start with a little drawing based on what the end user wanted in his knife. Try to make a full sized drawing (or 10). Take the best 3 or 4 and make 3 cardboard copies. Play with the cardboard copies. If anything needs to be taken down a bit just wet your hand and press it to the right shape. Make another paper copy. Outline the paper copy onto the piece of steel you will use. Cut it out with dremel tool and grinding disks (very long process- have found out after that many in my situation drill around the outline then Dremel/hacksaw out). Clamp onto a piece of wood and file, file, file- rest arm- file, file, file...... Get a pro to do heat treat. Get it back and sand, sand, sand, sand. Take handle scales and sand flat. Figure out how you want scales to be shaped, and scribe onto underside of scales. Cut out shape with new bandsaw (cheap one). Glue liners to scales- wait till dry. Sand with both scales pressed together (use a drop of superglue or double sided tape) to ensure they are both the same shape. Glue both scales onto handle- ensure they are flush and where you want them. Clamp and set aside for the night. Take knife, cut off excess glue, sand tang and round scales a bit.
Find out what shape your sheath will be using paper wrapped in shape around knife. Take this pattern to the Kydex and mark it out with white paint pen. Cut out sheath with bandsaw. Grind away some on area to be folded over. Heat up kydex, place around knife and press in homemade press (Gardener kneepads glued to plywood and held down with heavy block of steel). Take out and OOPS- try again, and again, and again. Finally get it close and heat just area to be folded over. Roll it around rest of sheath and put back into press. Test fit around finger groove to see how well it holds. Reheat that area and press with fingers to achieve proper tension. Oops- try again, and again, and this time it seems good!! Remove knife and grind around edges. Take compressed air and blow out inside of sheath to get excess dust out. Drill holes around edge of sheath- blow out again. Tie paracord through holes several times to get acceptable pattern. Tell Girlfriend to finish sanding the plaque. Give away on your own birthday to friend going back to Korea in a couple of days.

Oh yah- Cut out around 10 other blade blanks but don't finish (then you will have less mess ups on your first knife but will have to fix those mess ups on the next 5 blades). Make 6-7 Kydex sheaths for your existing knives before trying one on your first knife.

Then cry cause you wanted to keep it!
Easy right. (There are much better ways to do it than trial and error- but it worked for me)!
 
I leanered everything from this forum.
First I worked up a drawing, then re-drew it a hundred time until I got something I liked.
Then trace drawing onto piece of steel. Cut out rough shape using a drill and hacksaw, now I have an angle grinder which is much faster and easier. Then I cleaned up the outline on the belt grinder(sander), until it was the final profile I wanted. Then I layed out my pin holes and drilled them. Then I ground in my bevels, but not until sharp.Then heat treat the knife blank. Then sand the sides of the blank and finish to about 220 grit. Trace out handle shape onto wood scales, then rough cut them out, leaving them slightly larger than tang profile. Finish the front of the scales to how I want them. Then I epoxied one scale on, and let dry. Drill pin holes through scale using holes in the tang. Then epoxy other scale, let dry, and drill holes using holes already in the other scale. Epoxy in the pins. Take the handle to the belt sander, and shape to my liking. Then finish the bevels on the belt grinder, and sharpen. Hand sand the blade and handle to a finish of 1500 grit.
 
Make mistakes,
Try to learn from them.

when it looks like you will never make a good knife... your almost there
just dont give up
read as much as you can but your hands dont think they just feel so let them feel steel and you are on the right path
 
My grandfather had a collection of books called the "Popular Mechanics Complete Do-it-yourself Encyclopedia" published sometime in the 50s or 60s, I read the article in there about making your own knife when I was 14, and after my parents were asleep I snuck into the basement woodshop with a file I had bought at a church rummage sale. I took a bernzomatic propane torch and worked a dull reddish glow up and down the file to anneal it for an hour, then started filing it. I had this basic blade shaped piece of steel when I started college at RIT. The photo department where I was was at one end of the building, and the metals program of the School of American Craftsmen was at the other. I was teaching myself how to do jewelry work, and took a metals elective for a quarter, and one of the grad students (Mark Morgan) was making some knives in the back room. I showed him my knife shaped object, and he let me use the school's Bader grinder to finish it, and showed me how to heat treat it. I made the handle, gaurd, and pommel that summer out of a piece of desert ironwood and two pieces of brass hex stock. That first knife took 5 years to finish.
My advice for starting is read all you can. Ask questions! I wish this forum had been around 27 years ago when I started my first blade, this and the number of books that have come out in the last 15 years are amazing resources. Don't take what you read on this forum or in a book as gospel, take the information digest it, think about it, then get yourself some steel and try it out. Kevin Cashen told someone recently on this forum (and I don't remember the exact quote) that your progress is most truly gauged by the pile of mistakes under your workbench. You learn more from your mistakes than from your successes, just be sure that you work safely, tools that shape steel can easily remove fingers or worse, and wear your safety glasses! lessons involving eyes can have a permanently limiting effect on future creativity.
most importantly work always to the best of your ability and with attention to detail and craftsmanship.
Go out and do it. Find out what works for you, learn from as many people as possible, and when you have the opportunity down the road to pass on some of what you have learned to someone new, do it. You will be amaze by how much you learn teaching others!

-Page
 
i was really lucky my friends uncle ended up being a knifemaker, went there one day he handed me a peice of metal and i hammered a knife. I wish he had told me its like crack. I fiend for it.
 
I started doing some knife kits. Then decided to try my hand at making my own.

That's when I really started reading forums, and then purchased a few books: The $50 Knife Shop, & Bob Terzoula's "Tactical Folder". Fortunately, I had the funds to buy a nice grinder ,some knife steel, and started grinding. I made mistakes, but that's how you learn.

Reading and research is most important when trying to start making knives.

Good luck,

Mike L.
 
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