Handmade Knife

In this intructable, I will be showing how to make a fairly simple yet professional handmade knife using 5 basic steps

1 design
2 shape
3 heat treat
4 sharpen
5 finish

When it comes down to it, the actual list of materials in the knife consist of
Steel (1/8" 0-1 in my case) and paracord. I did however use other things like plastic and glue so I will cover that when we get to it
Equipment list
Band saw
Grinder/sander
Vise
Drill press
Clamps
Kiln w/bucket-o-oil

Step 1 Design

This step was the easiest; I knew I wanted to make an interesting knife so I started drawing lines until I came up with this guy here. After a little talk with a guy that has made knives for years (my Dad) we changed the design a little, you can see the final design just under the knife.

after the design is printed and cut out, its glued to a piece of plastic in order to make a permanent template, in this case I used an old knife design my dad had laying around.
When the glue dried i used a band saw to make quick work of the excess plastic and then cleaned it up using a sander
.

Comments

[black hole]

Could you post something on making a kiln? The heat-treating part of knife making has always been a problem of mine.

[gedion4000]

there should be a few instructables on here on how to make a kiln and there's a lot online. this one was made from a scrap kiln that was found on craigslist. it didn't work, but the bricks were still good. they were stacked up to form a long tunnel(one end sealed up, the other open) with one of the bricks on the bottom cut to allow the flame to enter. everything was held together tightly by a box made out of tin sheeting. our fire came from a turkey fryer and a propane tank. if you want to make a smaller knife you can always make a small kiln by just stacking the bricks up around it and using a blowtorch. it will be some time before i could do an instructable on that so i hope this helps. what issues were you having with the heat treating? was it just a lack of kiln?

[black hole]

Yeah, it was mostly because I didn't have a kiln. So far, all that has happened when I try to heat treat is part of the blade gets to the right temp and then when I try to heat the what's left, the first part cools down. Of course, I'm just using an old (think 30+ years old) propane torch, so that must be a big part of the problem.

I'll poke around and see what I can see.

Thanks for the help,
black hole.

[gedion4000]

yeah i would look into getting some kind of high heat insulation. its kind of a cheap way out but if you cant find any fire brick, you could always get a bunch of torches, buy a pizza, and have some friends over to help lol

[black hole]

Thanks ; )

[spark master]

this thing took out my urls
so add the
.

for DOT and ad the W's to see the holster

tandyleatherfactory DOT com/search/searchresults/44451-01.aspx

do the same for the sheath kit
tandyleatherfactory DOT com/home/44123-00.aspx

[spark master]

SWEET.

I would make wooden grips for it, or bone (or bone over mahogany or a fine grained dark wood). Your dad taught you well cause this is a beaut!! Deserves a fine sheath or scabbard. For scabbard use wood core and thin leather then outside leather and belt loop (I like a safety belt loop, to keep knife in when walking).

again a very very very sweet piece of metal craftwork.

[gedion4000]

Thank you, its much appreciated. I agree with the wood handle, when i came up with the design i thought wood would be great, but i havent quite gotten the hang of the wood working yet and the leather, well its hard work. my dad cuts and stitches all his leather work for the sheaths by hand and can take forever to get it right. its been a while since i posted this, but maybe i will try to make a sheath instructable for it.

[spark master]

heck if this is an old post and you do not have a sream of "WOW can I have one too!!!" then the instructables robot is not doing his job. Your machining was a masterful manipulation of steel. I am not a collector, nor an iron monger/blacksmith. I have made two knives a spoon gouge and a couple of scribes for bone work. I carve when possible and make walking sticks. I am a Boy Scout merit badge counselor for wood carving and leather badge. Simple sheaths are easy and Tandy Leather Craft sells nice kits.



Forget the tooling it is harder then it looks. I modified a kit sorta like this



for a leftie shooter, all the guys at the range loved it. I made it simple for him, I only put his intials on it and then made it totally black (was ehh to me), he loved it.


Two thin pieces of mahogany or maybe ebony , full lenght and two bone inserts even if you just put fancy initials and maybe a cross hatch (knurled?) look would be incredible.

Another , perhaps simpler thing would be same wood then you cut a border with a U gouge around the perimeters and epoxy in a copper or brass wire, (think black ink drawing then you fill in color, like a kids coloring book), if you use yellow bronze wire it will stand off more.

as far as sheaths go a nice one can be made with old leather from a couch and wooden paint stirring sticks, very thing (delaminated) wood paneling. I made one for a scout who made a knife. It was a scabbard since it had a hard sided case covered in whatever I had (bone color, stained sorta brown). It had a curved blade as well and it6 needed to "slide" around the pivot, with out slicing open the sheath. Ergo the paint stick frame. The wood frame, ( a real thick separator piece think washer) was strong enough to withstand removal and insertions. Leather good leather is hard to get nowadays. If you can find a real cobbler (shoemaker), buy heavy duty replacement soles (full sized for size 12. use them for sheaths and attach a belt loop, simple loop stiching is fine but secure it at least two place with rivets.

finally if you make it leather lined, leave suede side to the blade and before gluing/sewing rivetting, rub in generous amount of polishing compound where ever the knife can be. Then any rubbing is a buffing. If they make other compounds that are better in absorbing water or O2 use that.

I wish I had taken pics as I did that.

ciao

[Brad I.]

I like your knife a lot. Thanks for the detailed instructions. I want to make one and hand carve a handle. Luckily, my sister owns a kiln for her glassworks ;)

What recommendation do you have for wood. And where can I get steel blanks like what you have? It's tempting to cut up a lawnmower blade.

[gedion4000]

well, you Could cut up a lawnmower blade, its been done. its pretty popular to use old leaf springs from junk yard cars and trucks cause they will hold an edge really well and the have good flex. the best place i can recommend online would have to be www.alphaknifesupply.com they have some great wood and knife blanks on there, you just need to look around for something you like and in your price range. i used 1/8th inch thick 01 steel for mine. you can go thicker if your doing a survival knife so you have no problem chopping down a tree or cutting through bone. oh and when you look for wood, its not much of a price difference but i would look for stabilized wood, doesn't suck up much moisture and no shrinking over time, its good stuff.

[Brad I.]

Gedian. Thanks for the great tips. I think you're right about the blade blanks. It's a lot of trouble to make a knife to have it mess up due to recycling old parts probably doesn't make sense. I'll also look into that stabilized wood.

[gedion4000]

sweet, be sure to post pictures of whatever you make. would love to see what you do.

[jimwi]

Very Nice and great job. I really like the shape but love the simplicity of the handle. I thought of a way to rap the handle with one piece of cord . If you thread the cord threw the second hole first and down to the first hole second, hope that made sense? Then rap the handle you don't have to tie the start ends in and if you ever need to use the cord you will have a nice long piece. Keep up the good work. JIM.

[gedion4000]

Thanks, awesome idea. i will have to try that out on the next one.

[DELETED_kage_no_akiri]

(removed by author or community request)

[gedion4000]

we did that too, you cant relly see it in any of the pictures but inside the oil there is a little basket the knife lands in we uced to swirl it around. on my knife the first head treat didnt take so i put it back in without the foil on, it was much easier to grab it out and go stright into the oil with a pair of tongs.

[EmcySquare]

Very Nice indeed I'm starting out some knife making myself.

We must admit that having all the needed tools like the sander and the kiln is a hell of a head start since those are very expensive and uncommon tools to have.
So far so good!!
Keep it up and post your next productions !!

[gedion4000]

thanks. my dad was lucky enough to find a studio kiln on line that someone was giving away. all the electronics were ripped out so he build his own out of the bricks. the sander on the other hand can be a little expensive. im sure all the shaping can be done with a bench grinder, it would just take a little longer.

[general-Insano]

one thing i learned from grinding with the belt grinder is to sand a notch into wood that you want to use to hold the metal

[zorba365]

cool ... nice knife