How to Build a Knife

Step 9 Finished! And some of the mistakes I made along the way.

Well, there you go. A finished knife. I'm happy with the way it came out--yet I'm not immune from mistakes. Picture two shows my most egregious error--when I drilled the holes through the first handle slab I hadn't let the epoxy set fully, and the slab slipped before I drilled without me noticing it. It was only after I drilled three of the holes that I realized that the wood wasn't covering part of the handle. Fortunately I one of those holes was in the right place, and I was able to gently move the wood back into the right position before it dried. I continued along with the project and disguised the holes with two plugs of Purpleheart wood. Since I took the picture the wood has darkened and the plugs have become a little more blended with the handle. I kind of like them--they add a little character to the blade.

The third picture is hard to see, but it shows a hairline fracture on the spine of the knife. At first I thought it was just a tough scratch from when I did the filework, but I realized later that it was on both sides of the blade. It's small and I don't think it really compromises the blade's strength, as it only extends about three eighths of an inch in.

I guess this section is just here to let you know that we all make mistakes, and you shouldn't punish yourself for making them. Building a fine knife is something to be very proud of, and a few mistakes make it no less amazing.

Edit: due to popular demand and my own copious amounts of free time, my sheathmaking instructable is now up. Check it out: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Build-a-Sheath/

Comments

[rstumph]

Process, the handle is nice

[rstumph]

yes sir this instructable is the bomb the best, the other one leave or miss a step in the prices for inst-ens i did not know the annealing process on the other so id make a few knives and there not relay sturdy cues i did not anneal, ill heat up to a orange then quench in iol
thanks Basta

[Fire hobbit]

one of the best tutorials i have read on here... will have to have a go at making one soon. a couple of questions mind. 1: what is the max length this method of blade making is good for? 2: would a brick bbq using none charcoal coal be good enough to use as a forge? cheers

[Basta]

Jay Fisher uses stock removal for large swords. The heat treating procedure is different--more precise--but you can use this method for any size blade, potentially. As long as the heat-treating forge is big enough, at least. The brick BBQ should be fine, provided it has a good forced air supply, such as a shop vac in reverse; that's the cheap solution. Use real blacksmith's coal (softwood, NOT charcoal or anthracite). I'll leave finding it up to you. Thanks for the coherent comment! They're always appreciated.

[apod13]

charcoal will work, u just burn through a ton of it, and u need some swift air flow to keep it hot

[MR.builderguy]

I used a camp-fire sort of thing, (oak firewood), and i blew on it with a leaf-blower. It's somewhat difficult, but it's fun.

[apod13]

that works too. make sure to keep any...plastic fans...you might use far enough from the fire. they melt. (i know from experience.)

[MR.builderguy]

that sounds unfortunate.

[ironsmiter]

Max length? Your skill. That's it. If you're going to try heattreating in your BBQ... the size of your grill will have more to do with the blade length than anything else. If you're going to use Charcoal... go for REAL charcoal. By real, I mean hardwood charcoal. You can make your own, if you can't find any to buy(many many sites will tell you how, and it's not really hard). But the briquettes are problematic for metalworking, though they WILL work, if you're desperate. In a pinch, I've even done some heat treating in a wood fire. While camping, a budy complained that his new axe wouldn't even cut saplings without getting dull. Since we had a nice hot bonfire going... in the head of the axe went. Heated to a bright cherry in around 3 min, quickly quenched in the pond to a black heat. after a quick(and careful) polish with scotchbrite on one side... we waited for the staw temper color to reach the cutting edge, and plunged it in the water till cold to the touch. Voila, it now holds it edge pretty well, for moderate brush hacking. :-) If we had known the exact type of steel used, had access to my oil and water quench tanks, and more time... it would have been much better, but someimes making it WORK is more important than getting it exactly "right". One thing to note... a standard BBQ grill is NOT designed for the heats you achieve with forced air. It'll probably work a few times before it starts burning up, with low volume forced air. It is pretty easy to accidentally burn a hole right through the sheet metal. As an example, I have personally burned through a forge/grill made from a de-commissioned oxygen cylinder. It was loaded with coal, but the owner forgot to put the cast iron air grate in and, well, after a session of forge welding... I went to knock a clinker out, but knocked the air supply T clear out the bottom instead!

[spenfisher12]

what is the piont of the stuff on the spine

[Basta]

It looks nice, and gives me a little bit more of a thumb grip. Though there are better patterns if you're going for grip.

[spenfisher12]

soooooooo jimping

[marinos.a]

unbelievable craftsmanship

[zupyo22]

id have to say this is one of the very best how to knives iv seen on the internet could you show how to make a machete would it be the same as making this knife or would you take different steps to make it stroger

[ramboboy]

cool

[supernovix]

can i use the same steps in making a knife to make a sword? (not necessarily a katana)

[Basta]

Sure, that's the way Jay Fisher does it. For a "practical" blade, most people prefer a forged blade for its better structural qualities, but stock removal is a fine method too. Keep in mind that heat-treating will be much more difficult as you will need to keep the entire blade at a very high temperature. You would probably need to make an elongated furnace out of firebrick just for that. But yes, it's possible and many people do it.

[Whales]

The Pic of the knife in a stump(?) is awesome it's just shining there.

[Sanctus_Sanctorum]

what sort of oil is used?

[Basta]

In the instructable I use car motor oil. While that's acceptable, I've since learned that ATF (automatic transmission fluid) is a better quenchant. It's available from the same exact place as motor oil is--the hardware store or an auto parts store.

[blademaker]

Nice, I was taught to temper the edge to straw color and only the back of the knife to a purple. But it all depends on what you want.

[Basta]

Yeah, I should have differentially tempered the blade, but somehow I just skipped over that part of the process. Next project, certainly.

[gunny]

Good job but i perfer forming the shape of the blade in a forge using traditional meathods

[bitterwindsranch]

Great knife the fun part is making the sheath ahve you made one yet?

[Basta]

And the sheathmaking instructable is now up!

[Basta]

I've made a couple but haven't devoted much effort to making a really nice one. I've got an idea, though, so I'll try to take pictures of the process and make another Instructable, sort of a tag-along to this one.

[Sarthex]

damn, that's one sweet tutorial (great knive btw) you should make a tutorial "how to make a battle-axe" now that would be sweet-sweet!

[animal0307]

oh yea and do you know how to make sheaths?

[animal0307]

all I can say now is that I'm making a sword

[mrbonaparte]

sweet