What tools to get for a complete knifemaking set-up...?

B

blackviper91

Joined
Jul 10, 2007
Messages
334
...but with a catch, there is a $150 budget.

I have wanted to learn how to make knifes ever since I found out about customs and made my way to this forums. So far I just haven't had the time or resources. I now have $150 to hopefully buy everything I will need (not including raw materials). What should I get? I already have a bench grinder and general hand tools (pliers, hammer, etc. No real good files though(. Besides that I don't really have alot. Also, links to those supplies on a site like amazon or something would be especially nice.

Thanks alot,
Cody

BTW, I am planning on using 1095, including a way to easily heat treat this and or other types of steels would be nice.
 
humm.........I think you will have to set your budget a little higher but I would get a drill press or some sort of bandsaw to cut metal. Save up a tad more though:thumbup:
 
+1 drill press, I like to put a little sanding wheel on mine and make the spine nice. Its also great for drilling holes.
 
With that low of a budget, you are relegated to mainly hand tools.

You can start with the simplest hand tools:
Two or three GOOD files will run $30. A cheap drill press -$50.A GOOD drill bit set -$25, A good assortment of wet-or-dry paper from 100 grit to 400 grit - $30. A piece of precision ground steel-$20. Everything else you need for hand work (clamps,a board ,work table,etc.) can be improvised.



Before you spend a dollar, though, you will need to know what the tools will do and what you need to do with them. Wayne Goddard's book, "The $50 Knife Shop", is a good start for those on a budget. The title is a bit out of date, but with some mechanical ability, and good scrounging skills, one can set up a workable shop for something like $250-500.

If you read the stickies on the top of this forum,and check out the many tutorials available, you will get the idea of what it takes to make a knife. Remember that most everything you see or read that refers to power tools CAN be done by hand.....it will be harder, and slower, but it will come out the same.

As a young student the last thing you want to hear is to do voluntary homework, but the best results will come from being fully knowledgeable before you purchase a single item.

Safety is a must with knife work. The safety requirements increase many fold when you start using power equipment.

I'll Make a deal with you:
Purchase the book, $50 Knife Shop, and read it cover to cover twice.
Then email me about the type of knife you want to start on, and how you plan on going about it. I'll then send you on loan a couple hundred dollars of knife making books to read next. After you get them and have gone through them, we can fine tune your first knife ideas. Return those books,and then I'll send you all the materials (proper steel, nice handle material, other supplies,etc.) and information you will need.I may have some extra hand work tools to throw in the box. I will give you a list of the other tools you need to purchase and where to get them at a good price.This box will be my gift to you.

This will take you about two to three months of reading and planning before you purchase any tools or start working on a knife. Patience is one skill you will need plenty of to make knives...especially by hand. If you can make it till early 2008 with just study and such,I'll get you started on knife making .

There will be a bonus to this plan.
There are lots of 15 year old boys who,"Want to Make a Knife". There are not so many who want to learn HOW to make a knife right. If you show the initiative and desire to want to,learn right, there are a lot of Indiana makers who will likely invite you over to learn something in their shops. Many old makers wouldn't likely waste the time on a youth who isn't really interested in learning, but will go out of their way to teach a willing student. Bill Moran said it the best about teaching youth the skill of knifemaking, "When we're all gone ,who will be left?"
 
That is an offer that you will never get beat in the knife making world. My hat is off to you Stacy.
 
don't forget - there's no shame in putting together a kit as a first knife....that way you start with a properly heat-treated blade and have something usable right off the bat. Then learn how to grind and heat-treat blades after you have had a first success.


Many a knifemaker made their first knife with just a file and a rasp!



Tools don't make the knife...desire/drive does. :thumbup:
 
I can do it! go to your local hardware super store or mom and pop shop and get you these things only...

$15.00 Nicholson Files,
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=91631-000000273-21842&lpage=none
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=96691-000000273-06601&lpage=none

$20.00 Bench Vice
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=212037-28920-50504&lpage=none

$13.00 Drill Bits
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=177085-353-TI10&lpage=none

$30.00 Hand Drill
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=242197-79992-DR250B&lpage=none

$50.00 Belt Sander
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=230299-353-7500&lpage=none

as far as heat treating goes, use an old weber charcoal grill, drill a 1"-1.5" hole in the bottom , use a 6" piece of pipe, to go through the hole. Let it stick up at least 2"-3" or just under the bottom grate. Attach a 90 degree pipe joint to the 6" incher and another 3-6 foot long pipe length. Clamp your mom's / wife's / girlfriends Hair dryer on the far end, set it on a cement block or something to support it. plug it in with an extension cord, fill the bottom grate with charcoal, (Kingsford Original). light it wait for a minute to get the charcoal lit and there you have a heat treating forge. Dont forget to get you a good magnet like out of a junk hard drive, and attach it to a rod, to test for the non magnetic point so you know when to quench. and then draw back in your home oven at 350-400 for 2-3 hours. you can also fire color in your home oven... http://www.threeplanes.net/toolsteel.html

also don't discount your public library for gobs of knowledge! (it a big building with lots of books!,) Stacy's the best no doubt about that, I'd also say pick up a copy of Machinary's Handbook and read it cover to cover many times.

Jason
 
i would say a good drill press. but a hand drill works as well. one time i did no have any electric drills but i had a hand drill that i used, like in hand powered. thangs went slow but i was making knives. use what you have or can afford and have fun. but a belt sander is probabley one of the first thangs i got. it was just a hand held sander that used the 4"x21" belts. but i say agen use what you can get and dont stres over not having what you cant get yet. have fun
 
Thanks for all the advice everyone.

Stacy, I will definately take you up on your offer. I've been waiting since mid-summer to start making knives, I'm sure a few more months won't kill me. I'll still be learning about the process anyway, which to me is almost as interesting as actually doing it. I'll be ordering the $50 Knife Shop as soon as I can and reading it through. I'll send you a note when I have finished it.

Thanks again,
Cody
 
Many, many years ago, I was getting ready for a deployment over seas. I cut a piece of annealed leaf spring in to a rough knife blank. I packed that, a Nicholson file, and a C-clamp in my sea bag. Upon arriving in Okinawa I started filing on my knife. Didn't really take as long as you mite think to finish the profile and file the bevels. When the knife was where I wanted it I collected wood. Dug a pit and made air pipe of bamboo covered with mud in my ground forge. I made a bag bellows out of a pair of pants, a plastic soda bottle and a ping Pong ball for the valve. I burnt a big pile of wood in to a pile of coals and heated my blade to a nice bright red and quenched it in sea water mixed with detergent. I color tempered it by piling ash over the coals. The C-clamp was clamped to the tang and a long stick was used to fish it out of the fire. I did a rough polish on a stone I found on the beach, and the handle was just wrapped in 550 Cord.
Total store bought tools. Hacksaw, C-clamp, and a file.
Additional, One par of pants, sewing kit, ping pong ball.
This wasn't my first knife, in fact I had a few years of knife making behind me, and that was 30 years ago. Last week I just bought my first belt grinder, so it doesn't take a lot of tools, it takes ingenuity.
 
Stacy has just made an offer of unparalelled greatness. If you're serious about making blades, follow his direction carefully. I'm just a beginner, a year into making knives, and with an average turnaround of 2 months per blade up to this point, but the most important advise I can give you is... read a lot, and listen to your peers. There are so many knowledgeable people on these forums alone that if you dont come here and learn at least one thing per day, you're not paying enough attention.

Stacy is an excelent maker, and an outstanding citizen... not only that but he wears a kilt! I dont know how you can top that, so listen to him and listen well.
 
Bikermike, that is pretty cool. It definately shows that you don't need alot of money or special equipment to make a knife. Sounds like it was a good way to keep busy while you were bored too :)

Justin, I know what you mean about learning something new everyday. After a good days worth of reading learning dozens of new things isn't a stretch

~Cody
 
I had this:

benodigtheden.JPG


and made this:

1e%20mes%20aanzicht.JPG


If you alow yourself the time you can do it with handtools only.
What you realy need is: Files, a hacksaw, (good)clamps, good dry/wet sandpaper and some blocks of wood to wrap the paper around.
A drillpress was the first machine I bought, it did come in very handy.

One bit of advice: don't spend your money on a cheap vice, they wear out quickly. Better save up a bit and buy a proper one.
 
Cody,
I glad you are going to start this out the right way. There are a lot of fellows on this forum who didn't, and wish hey had taken the time to learn in right the beginning. It saves a lot of headaches and heartaches.

As Justin said, read-read-read. There is a ton of info (some of it good) on the Internet, and lots of books. Check out your local Public Library (it's that old building that they keep the books in), too.

I will set a "Cody" box in the work room and start sticking books and items in it.

Send me an email at, sapelt@cox.net , so we can discuss things.

Now, for others who wonder why I singled you out,
You took the time to fill out your profile (once you realized it was there).
You filled it out straight and honest (no cute mall ninja stuff).
You were forthright and said you were 15.
Your previous posts are mostly discussion or questions, not you trying to impress the forum with your vast knowledge.
All of these things show some maturity and character. If you were my neighbor, I probably still would think all teen agers were wastrels ( let's face it, as a group, they aren't showing much lately), but I would still invite you over to the smithy.

One good thing about the knife making community is they don't much care what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, or who you know.
What they care about is quality of character, and self reliance. We have people with holes punched in various parts of their head ,long hair, strange opinions, 15 year olds, and 90 year olds; heck, we even have kilt wearers! All types for sure. The common thread is a desire to MAKE knives and have contact with friends with a common interest. Most will not become the world's greatest knifemaker, but all are proud of what they made with their own hands.

I'm willing to risk a few books and some steel and stuff that you can become a knifemaker.
Stacy
 
Thats a damn fine gesture Stacy:thumbup:. Cody good for you you could not do any better than this. Good luck on your venture into the art of knifemaking.:D
Bob
 
Wow!

if I had that kind of offer when I was a teenager growing up, I probably wouldn't be in computers today! :)

I started at your age, working in an engravers shop, where I learned a bit about machining, milling, drilling, cutting, boreing and general shaping of wood, metals and plastics. the shop owner was a machinist, and had all the gear there. I made my first knife in his shop out of plain sheet metal and pine. I walked away from that job with some good life skills, that have come in handy around the house on small projects. i wouldn't say i'm an expert, but I what little I do know makes me dangerous to myself and others ;)

These days i'm coming back into metalworking and woodworking, so that I get be skilled enough to share it with my kids when they get older. (But selfishly, it's to make some blades that would satisfy that craving to shape something with my own hands.)

It's a good set of skills to have and who knows? maybe we'll all be looking to buy your knives as collector's items ;)


GodSpeed and God Bless!
r.
 
Wow~ What a good post it turned out to be ^^ I was always wondering what a good shop was suppose to have haha

I'm a beginner as well, so this post is going to give me a serious boost in knife making :P
 
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