knife makeing

[woodsman1031]

Hello,

Any of yall make knives?

I would love to get some pointers and advice. I am just starting to learn.


Tommy

[MadTripper]

I have played around a little bit but nothing major. I started to make a knife from a used up rasp from a farrier friend of my fathers. They are good steel if you can get your hands on some. Others I've played with were just flat steel.

Tripper

[Rick]

There is two basic ways to make a knife, depending on your tools.

The first way is stock removal, where you take a piece of metal and grind away everything that doesn't look like a knife.

The second requires blacksmithing: a way to heat up the metal and something to pound it on. I have a forge, anvil and all that stuff, but you can heat the metal up with a torch and pound it out on a piece of railroad track.

I have made some pretty knives out of crowbars, railroad spikes, and the like. My next project is going to be a couple Tanto knives made out of an old drawknife and some spear heads (my boys are going to love them; my wife is gonna want to use one on me for giving them such sharp implements :o)

Recycling old metal is a real benefit of blacksmithing. Blacksmithing is fairly easy to learn and inexpensive to get into. There are a lot of cool links on the www.

Rick

[longshot]

woodsman, here is a link to a thread with a few of mine. i use the stock removal method.

http://www.backwoodshome.com/forum/yabb/forum.pl?board=fir-knives;action=display;num=1163473659

ls

[kbaknife]

If you need a little help, send me an email.
here's a little of my work:

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c247/kbaknife/stag7-3.jpg

[Av8rTx]

The Foxfire books had some stories about knife making out of old saw blades, I've considered trying that

[Pitdog]

To play around with, a belt sander/bench grinder and some pieces of large bandsaw blades is fun. The metal makes great kitchen and skinning knives. Drilling through the steel for handles is about the only real challenge. But I used to make them in a little of no time with a disc sander and coke bottle cut and filled with water.
Am working on a larger knife made from leaf spring right now, haven't touched it in over a year, but it is still in process. Going to surface grind some material off of the thickness before continuing much.
There are several good books on making knives that are not expensive. A small forge can be made with some expanded metal, a car wheel, and some pipe and an old hair dryer. Piece of rail makes dandy anvil, especially for starting out.

[woodsman1031]

Hello Yall,

I forgot to check this since I posted it. I have been on the site but I forgot to look here ???

I made a knife from a piece of old flat shovel blade and an antler about 4 months ago. I have another knife with the epoxy drying right now. I made the 2nd one out of an old skilsaw blade. I am epoxying it into a piece of maple for a handle. I think it turned out better than my first one.

Anyone else worked on any lately?


Tommy

[woodsman1031]

Hello!

I have been busy! I have made 6 knives so far. I have made 3 hidden tang and 3 handle through style knives. I must say the handle through style is much much easier that the hidden tang. when I would epoxy the hidden tang I would get them crooked. ::) I still prefer the heft of a tang through knife.

I made 2 knives from scratch yesterday in probably 4 hours total. I have removed the time it takes for the epoxy to dry. I hate waiting on the epoxy to dry! I really like building knives though.

I like it when thier sanded out and I get to put danish oil on the handles. I think putting on the Danish oil and watching it soak into the wood of my latest knife is the best part.


Tommy

[woodsman1031]

here is a picture.

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f138/woodsman1031/my%20knives/06-08-08_1340.jpg

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f138/woodsman1031/my%20friction%20folder/ff1.jpg

[johnjmw]

Nice looking knife!

John

[Pitdog]

Not bad at all. The hard part is the finish work. Polishing the metal correctly, removing all tooling marks, and (muff ups like I'm prone to doing) It is mostly time consuming.
Good job though.

[CHUCK_IN_PA.]

HI EVERYONE ,
I JUST REGISTERED ON THE SITE.I'VE BEEN MAKING KNIVES FOR ABOUT 5 YEARS NOW.WAYNE GODDARD HAS SOME GREAT BOOKS OUT ON GETTING STARTED.TRY HIS $50 KNIFE SHOP. I LIKE OLD FILES (W2) AND TRUCK COIL SPRINGS(1095). I MADE TWO FORGES.THE FIRST WAS TO CONVERT MY TURKEY FRYER USING FIRE BRICKS,AND THE SECOND WITH A HAIR DRYER AND A GAS STOVE BOX(THIS ONE IS FOR COAL)JUST WANTED TO ADD MY TWO CENTS

[Theyeti]

Propane or coal forge, belt sander, can of appropriate quenching fluid a little study on heat treat...one could feasibly make servicable knife blades out of 10XX series, W-1 (a bit higher learning curve here), and O-1 . Even some of the complex carbon steels like 5160 or 6150 could be employed with a little more finesse in the heat treat area (hot salts martensitic heat treat).

The bonus is the satisfaction of knowing how to make an ever usefull implement with your own hands.

[galloglaigh]

My two homemades....

http://i546.photobucket.com/albums/hh427/Chowanoke/DSCI0161.jpg

The sheath knife is antler; the patch knife, bone and pweter. Blades are recycled from an old sawmill band saw