After talking with blacktail (roy) and seeing his knife build along i have decide to try one on a full tang knife, Its always nice to see a couple of different ways to make knives, and to see what suits you best.
All pictures will come after original postings and literature on the the steps.
SO YOU WANT TO MAKE A KNIFE.....
These are the tools you are going to need to start for a stock removal knife.
1) ******* file
2) mill file
3) ricasso guide----> this is pretty easy to make if you dont have one. It is two pieces of steel about 2-4 inches long and 1/2 -1 inch wide, each piece has one hole drilled through each end and a nut and bolt, this is for a file guide. Note picture
4) a couple of C-clamps
5) notched 2x4
6) a bench vise, not necessary as you can use one of the C-clamps to hold down the would be knife on a flat surface.
7) knife scribe-- this marks the exact centre of the blade.
a good piece of steel---order this if you do not have one already, please do not use an old saw blade or leaf spring simply order a piece of steel from knifemaker.ca they sell steel by the inch.
9) Brass,Stainless steel or nickel silver bar for bolsters.
10) pins for the bolster and the handle, for bolsters i like to use the 1/16th inch pins, an the for the handle depending on the size of the knife up to a 1/4 inch pin.
11)Hacksaw
12)ball peen (pien) hammer
I KNOW THIS SOUNDS LIKE LOTS BUT IT REALLY ISNT, YOU WILL BE SURPRISED AT THE PRICE.
This is how to order your steel : If your knife that you want to make is going to be 6.5 inches to about 10.5 inches the steel should be 1/8 inch thick minimum,
if the knife is going to be 6 inches or smaller then order 3/32nd inch steel. Draw your knife on a piece of paper or look at styles on the internet this will help you to determine the width for your steel, generally i order 1.5 inch wide.
this is for hunter style knives.
You can go to a thicker steel such as 5/32nd if you want a real heavy knife, 9 inches and up you could consider this.
Each steel has its own properties. For beginners i always suggest starting with the 440c stainless steel, this steel is softer than other knife steels and more forgiving when you file and sand it. And trust me it does get a little monotonous sanding a knife by hand, thats why it is always nice to have a buddy with you. Someone to blame when you make a mistake.
the steel of course is your choice. My Mainstay steel is CPM S30V.
1) Now that you have your steel and you have picked a design for your knife trace it on your piece of steel and get your hacksaw, or if you are lucky enough to have a metal cutting bandsaw, cut it out. What you now have is the basic shape of your knife.
2)At this point you are going to take the knife scribe and mark half way on the blade of the knife, best way i found to do this is use a caliper, the knife i am working on has a width of .120 of an inch so half of that is .60 now i want to leave a bit of room for a secondary bevel so i am going to take it down to .50 this is going to be the final edge of the knife and this one , like 99% of mine, is going to be 25 degrees.
3)Now that you have the line scribed in the blade (edge) we need to find where the bevel is going to start on the blade, once again i use a caliper for this, from the bottom edge i open the caliper to where i want the bevel to start , on this knife it is closer to the top than the bottom. i lock the caliper and using the bottom edge as a guide i run it up the blade to the tip marking the steel just enough that i can see the line and then i draw it in with a black felt marker, i do this on both sides.
4)Now that the knife is scribed on the blade and the future edge lock the ricasso in place and then clamp it all down on a nice steady surface so that i doesnt move.
ok, now, look at your felt mark and look at the edge of the knife what we are going to try to do here is file away on an angle so that the scribed line on the edge meet the felt line on the blade at the same time. Start filing with the *******. This will take some time, i always get hand cramps at this point from holding the file, a little trick i learned is to use my entire body instead of just grabbing the file and using arms alone. Also grasping the file just enough to not let it slip.
Use a nice smooth action one way from the ricasso guide to the tip, if you only make it half way then start where the file left off this will help to insure that you have a nice smooth (aside from the depth of the file marks) surface instead of all bumpy.
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Originally Posted by Downwind
