What's a good knife design to start out on?

[silenthunterstudios]

I have a lot of wild designs in my sketchbook, but I don't think they will physically work. Drop point hunter? Tanto? I would like to start out easy, but not too easy, something to get acquainted with. Thanks.

 

[neosporin]

i'm just starting out too and i'm just doing designs onto traced rectangles of the steel i'm going to use. then just remove the least amount of metal to get the knife haha it's alot easier this way if you dont have tools like grinders to make profiling easier. when i was using a dril to do some of the outline and i burnt out the bit before i even made one hole i was like holy crap... a grinder is definitly coming soon.

 

[elvenbladesmith07]

id do a trade knife, tanto, or a scramseaxe. maybe not a scramseaxe or tanto if your forging, because the blade will curve when you hammer the bevels, and it takes a bit of hammer skill to get it perfectly straight again. if you want a curved tanto, then go ahead and forge it! the hardest part it seams to do it the curved part of the bevel when it starts to form a point, a scramseaxe eliminates that problem, so its a good begginers knife.

 

[shappa]

silenthunterstudios, are you doing stockremoval or forging?

Neosporin, what steel are you using? Is it annealed? How fast is your drill running? You shouldn't be burning out a bit on one hole.

edited to add:
My first knife is pictured in the K.I.T.H picture thread...

 

[DaDanoska]

My first functional, all-by-me knife was had about a 3" drop point blade and was made as a general utility knife. Basic handle, no guard, carbon steel blade that I heat treated with a torch. It was a stock removal knife.

 

[Ilovetoolsteel]

I have a lot of wild designs in my sketchbook, but I don't think they will physically work. Drop point hunter? Tanto? I would like to start out easy, but not too easy, something to get acquainted with. Thanks.

A nice simple and very useful design is the Russell green river Dadley blade. It is a spear point with straight handle. What is also nice about it is you can play with the proportions of the handle and blade and still keep the overall style the same.

 

[Sweany]

whatever trips your trigger