Recommendation? Thickness/Sanding

[ZByrne]

I've been researching and watching knife making videos for about 2 years and I think I'm ready to make my own knife but I have a couple of questions.
1. What thickness steel should I use? I'm buying 1095 steel and not sure whether to use 1/8 or 3/16. Right now I'm planning on using 1/8 as this is just a first knife, mainly for experience, and it's not going to be undergoing a large amount of stress.
2. How much sandpaper should I buy? I'm planning on buying 120, 220, 400, 600, and 800. I think 800 will be a good enough finish for the first try. I just don't know how much I should buy. I'm assuming I will need more of the higher grit than the lower grit paper. (The blade will be around 5 inches)

 

[noob93]

Well I'm not a knife maker but I'll tell you what I think anyways lol. If I was you I would go with 3/16ths of an inch just for the simple fact of giving you more room for errors. I mean if anything goes wrong at that thickness like your grind is uneven or maybe your not satisfied with the geometry you can probably fix it where as if it was 1/8th of an inch you might not have enough material left to play with. Those are just guesses and I might be totally off. As far a sanding goes I think you should be good but I'm not sure if you need to take it all the way to 800. What kind of finish are you going for?

 

[ZByrne]

I'm doing all of this by hand so that was part of my reasoning behind the 1/8, less material equals less time at the filing jig. I'm going for a satin finish, I've read plenty of articles about people who say they only go up to 600 for a pretty solid satin, but I've seen a few videos with an 800 finish and I much prefer that.

 

[stabman]

Go with 1/8" thick stock, and use files for most of the work.
If you work through 120, 220, 320, 400, 600, then 800 grit, it should work out fine. Depending on the finish from the files, you might be able to skip the 120 grit step.

How are you hardening it?