What is your most, and least enjoyable part of making knives?

L

Londinium Armoury

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Jun 2, 2020
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Do you enjoy designing the blade on paper most? Cutting the blade blank, grinding the bevels, heat treating the blade, polishing the blade, making the handle, making the sheath?
Or maybe you enjoy every aspect.
What part do you enjoy the least or maybe find tedious and not as fun as the rest of the process? Maybe you love grinding those bevels, but hate putting handle pins in, or maybe you love to design the blade on paper and come up with fancy new designs for a complex knife handle. Maybe you love the fopging process and really enjoy hammering but hate the stock removal side of things.

Personally I get the most enjoyment out of that final stage of the handle making process, when you apply some nice oil to the dry wood, and suddenly it comes to life and transforms before your eyes into a lovely contrast of wood grain. I had some nice experiences with different types of hardwood, where after oiling the handles just jumped out with vibrant colour. I think this is for me the most instantly feel good moment.
I also like the feeling from quenching the blade, just dunking that red hot steel into the water and feeling it sizzle, makes me feel connected to some ancient blade smiths or something equally romantic and nerdy.

I don't really enjoy hand sanding blades, or applying epoxy to the handle scales and cutting the brass rods for the pins. Those parts I find most boring. Strangely I do like hammering the pins into the handle, and I don't mind peening things. I don't really enjoy cutting the blade blanks I find that part quite redundant like boring work, especially when I have a bunch of bar stock with blue or sharpie markings ready and waiting to be cut, I think yep gotta cut all of those out, not very fun process but gotta be done. I find forging blades pretty enjoyable, until I forge a fish mouth tip onto a knife. I don't really enjoy using grinders, sanding belts, or hand filing generally the stock removal part of the process, I find that less enjoyable.

I noticed people enjoy different parts of the process and after making quite a few knives now I realize knife making is lots of different skills and trades all rolled into one. Most people when they think of knife making they think metal grinding, or blacksmithing, but it's a lot more than that, and it's actually many different types of skill sets all rolled into one.
If you go back in time it's very common to see many skilled craftsmen each doing only a single aspect of making swords or knives, working together to finish a single piece. The smith maybe with some apprentices (biological power hammers) will beat out the blade blank and do the heat treating. then a grinder will refine the shape. Then a polisher and sharpener will take care of the edge. Then a handle maker will do the handle, then a sheath maker / leather worker / carpenter will make the sheath or scabbard.
So many different skills that are somtimes (especially in the modern world) are done by a single person, and that's actually quite amazing and is often overlooked, to be a skilled smith, polisher, sharpener, handle maker, leather working sheath maker, and also a designer and somebody who understands the theory behind all of the above crafts is quite varying.
So some people who have become knife makers might have a very strong bias in one of those or multiple crafts but not have taken to other aspects as much.
I would expect some of you are more inclined to liking one part over the other, and some of you prefer one part of it and maybe dislike some steps in the process.

I personally don't even make my own sheaths, and I haven't ever really got around to even learning the skill yet, I might end up really taking a liking to the process, or I might not.
 
Favorite is the first application of oil to the handle. A close second is the wood buff. Take that back, delivery to the customer and seeing ther reaction is top.

Most dreaded would be the stainless foil wrap. I used to hate straightening the most until I made a carbide peening hammer. Now I enjoy straightening because you can be so precise.

As my skills on the grinder improve I mind hand sanding less and less.
 
scott kozub said:
Favorite is the first application of oil to the handle. A close second is the wood buff. Take that back, delivery to the customer and seeing ther reaction is top.

Most dreaded would be the stainless foil wrap. I used to hate straightening the most until I made a carbide peening hammer. Now I enjoy straightening because you can be so precise.

As my skills on the grinder improve I mind hand sanding less and less.
Click to expand...

I think I need to get a buffing wheel, when I watch other guys buff the handles on wheels I think oh boy that looks lovely, just watching that sheen come over the handle making it look like glass. I never bought one for some reason, or even a buffing disc for my angle grinder I just skipped it. I just hand sand my handles to like 3000 grit and sometimes use bone to burnish them. They never come out as shiney as guys who use the buffing wheels though. That sure does look fun to do though, real ASMR satisfying kind of vibes.
 
I’m pretty new to knife making. My favorite part is the actual forging. As I get better on the grinder, I don’t mind grinding bevels at all. I detest gluing the handle material on. It’s just so messy. I love shaping the handle. Something about that that just makes the knife come to life for me.
 
I love the chip making parts of the process. It never gets old.
I hate sharpening. It's tedious.

I think that handle development might be the most underappreciated part of the process. It differentiates a good knife from a great knife and it can be a lot of fun and shouldn't be an afterthought.
 
I'm with Nathan on sharpening. Especially when I scratch a finished knife.
What I really dread is leather work. It's gotta be done, but I have a whole bag of rejects with one wonky stich hole. I'm definitely getting better but man, its infuriating.
I'd have to say I love the design process. I love seeing something go from a scribble to a drawing to a product and seeing how folks react when they pick one up and it fits into their hand. The smile they get when it "clicks".
 
Most enjoyable:
Making things to make things. Building my grinder, building my forge, making any little widget to help out along the way.

Most enjoyable of the actual knife making process:
The forging of the steel.

Least enjoyable:
The fine tune fitting, when you get to the 90% finished and 90% remaining stage.
 
Least favorite, bolster prep. The last few months though I've been cutting down the sizes of my batches. This has really helped. Instead of having to do it 60 times I might only od that 10 or 12 times. 60 times was getting to be work.

Favorite is handle shaping. Taking them from what I call the 2x4 stage to ready for hand sanding.
 
3fifty7 said:
Most enjoyable:
Making things to make things. Building my grinder, building my forge, making any little widget to help out along the way.

Most enjoyable of the actual knife making process:
The forging of the steel.

Least enjoyable:
The fine tune fitting, when you get to the 90% finished and 90% remaining stage.
Click to expand...

3fify7 hit the nail on the head - building things, tools, knives, most anything. He's also right, the most fun part of building is the first 90%, worse part is the last 10% which takes 90% of the time.
 
I find it varies I suppose. Grinding blanks is boring mindless work. Grinding bevels is challenging and sometimes exciting when it goes just right. I hate drilling pin and glue holes, but don't mind the glue up process. Hand sanding will always suck, but its what sets custom blades apart most of the time, so I'll learn to love it. I like shaping handles and finishing, but for some reason I detest hand sanding all the little scratches from the spine. It takes forever. It's a pain in the backside, but it does look great when done right.

I have found that a non-uniformly finished spine really makes an otherwise great knife look unfinished and poorly executed.
 
I love finishing the handle, especially wood, bringing out all the beauty of the Burl or grain is truly satisfying to me.
I hate doing sheathes, haven’t done a leather I like and kydex just sucks! I also found Kydex scratches AEBL easily
 
Well for me it's 1) cutting guard slots 2) grind hidden tang shoulders 3) shaping/finishing guards. Starting to see a pattern here? Seems like one file stroke to few it doesn't fit and one too many you have a gap. I can take tedious but that's all so stressful for me.

Fav's are 1) the first hand sand off the belt at 220 where you see how your bevels and plunges look. 2) shaping handles because now you are getting somewhere. 3) Final finishing and sharpening because whew, you're done
 
I enjoy profile grinding (now that I have a tilting grinder, I used to hate it when it had to be done by hand) and handle shaping, and of course oiling the finished handle. Hand sanding is getting better and better with time, partially due to better grinding and partially because I have started to enjoy it, somewhat meditative.

I don't particularly like heat treating and finish grinding - great when it goes well, but tedious and annoying if I mess it up. Glue up used to be the worst part for me, but I figured out a process that works for me now. I find that every so often I start to dislike a particular part of the process (usually something going wrong multiple times in a row). The process becomes enjoyable again when I figure out what I was doing wrong/inefficiently.
 
I love sliding the hidden tang on before glue up and seeing how it fits.

I dislike sheath making. Maybe because I feel like I should be done the project already, but then there's the sheath to make ...
 
I hate the epoxy part.
Hidden tangs arn't as bad as full tangs but I just don't like this part.
I love hand sanding.
It's about getting in "my zone" and slowly see how beautiful it gets. Music, the door shut and making someting beautiful. Doesn't matter if it's a blade or handle.
Leatherwork is a thing on it's own.

If I set my mind to it I can enjoy it, but I have to set my mind to it.
 
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I enjoy grinding bevels....partly because it is pretty new to me right now. It is just so cool to get to a point where I have a blade I have created and now it looks like a "real" knife that will be very nice. I also like shaping the handle.

Part I dislike most is anything I have to do so much that it becomes work instead of fun. I ground bevels on 16 blades this fall. Sitting there going "I have done 3 in one hour....I still have 4.5 hours to go" was not fun. I started working in time instead. I will grind for an hour and then I will make some sheaths and then go back o grinding for an hour made it more entertaining and less like work.
 
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