The knife making process begins with deciding what the purpose of the knife you're going to make is.
Purpose dictates the knife's design. Function first.
I started with a coil spring from a Jeep Wrangler.
The spring is cut using a hacksaw.
After cutting, the steel was heated and hammered straight.
I like to hammer a flat on the end to hold the round steel easier in my tongs.
When forging out round stock into flat or tapers always work on the edge of the anvil.
The end flattened to hold in tongs.
Here I have started forging a taper on one end that will become the tang.
Make sure the taper is even and worked on all sides to insure the tip is in the center of the piece.
Turn the piece around and start flattening and drawing out the blade end.
Draw the steel out to a rectangle keeping it the same thickness from end to end.
Once the steel is drawn out and flattened I use a spring fuller to separate the tang from the blade area.
After marking with the spring fuller I then draw out the tang more.
Turn the piece aroung and start drawing out the blade portion.
Be sure to work the steel on the edges as well as the flat sides.
As the steel cools work it lighter to keep the steel from splitting.
Here I am hot cutting the excess tang from the end.
Since I also enjoy forging miniature knives, this piece of steel will be saved to be forged into another knife.
After cutting off the excess forge the tang back into a taper.
Forge the tang on all sides keeping it straight and square.
I like to make mostly hiden tang knives. I forged the tang to at least 3 fingers in length since this is the area that will take the most pressure in the handle.
Once the tang is done I start working the blade section into the pre-form.
Start by forging the end of the blade. Remeber to forge the flat sides as you taper the end of the piece.
I am forging a drop point blade so the pre-form should look almost like a flat knife with no edge.
Here is the pre-form .
Here I begin to forge the bevels.
As the bevels are forged the tip of the blade turns up.
The tip of the blade turned up more than I expected, but the desired profile can be filed or ground to shape later.
The entire blade was heated to quenching temprature ( non-magnetic) then placed into wood ash I have in my shop desk drawer to cool slowly. This is how to anneal the blade so it will be soft to file and drill.
After the blade has cooled several hours it is then soaked in vinegar for a day.
Vinegar is a light acid and will eat the scale from the blade .
Next is to mark and clean up the profile of the blade. I know I mentioned I was forging a drop point, but after seeing the shape of the blade I decided to make an upswept skinner instead.
After deciding and marking the profile now comes the hard part. Using various files and different grades of sand paper to remove the excess steel.
Here is the finished profile of the blade.
Now we work on the sides of the blade leveling the flats and removing any pits or hammer marks.
I do this by "C" clamping the blade to a board cut in the general shape of the blade and securing it in my bench vice.
Here is the blade hand sanded to 220 grit and stamped with my logo. I have an everstamp logo stamp , but if you are looking into getting something to mark your blade I recommend an electo-chemical etching machine.
Using a hand stamp is ok, but if i had to do it again I would of bought an etching machine.
Next I tape the blade up with painters tape to protect the blade and my fingers. The blade is not sharp at this stage , but is sharp enough to cut you if it slips.
Here the blade is secured in my vice. I also use pieces of leather to further protect the blade while fitting the handle.
Here is the rough fitting of the handle material.
Next step is to harden the blade. Here I'm checking the blade with a magnet, once it reaches a point that the magnet no longer sticks is the right temperature to quench it.
Into the quench. I use a mixture I read about in one of my books, equal parts bacon grease, bees wax, and WD-40.It always gives a great quench and when it cools its solid so no worries about spilling it.
Here is the blade fresh out of the quench. You can see I only quenched the blade about 2/3 up from the edge.
After quenching clean the blade of scale and oil. This is important for the tempering of the blade.
As you can tell I don't have all the expensive equipment most knife makers have. I do all my work by hand and only have a battery powered drill for drilling out the handle material. Here I am heating a piece of scrap steel to use to temper the blade.
I place a fire brick on my anvil to slow down the cooling of the steel and a small pair of pliers.
By placing the knife on the heated piece of steel the heat transfers into the blade. As the blade heats up a colored oxide will form.
Blue = Spring
Purple = A little harder
Straw = Hard
The goal is to get the tang area and spine of the blade a good blue color and transitioning to a purple then a straw along the edge.
Here is the blade hardened and tempered. Next is to reassemble the handle using epoxy to hold it all together.
Here is the finished knife. The handle is blue and white corian with white tail stag antler.
My goal in the post is to show that the knives I make are made from scratch using items most throw away. The blade material I got from a local mechanic shop, the corian from scrap pieces from a counter top installer and the stag I got in a trade a few years ago.The important thing to remember is you don't need a lot of equipment or money for materials to make good knives, just time and the willingness to learn the process and a somewhat artistic eye to see the knife in a pile of scrap someone is throwing away.
Before After
