Making Knives

[dalboy]

Being new to carving I quite often see people that have made their own knives. I have a few questions.
1 What do you use for the blade.
2 Does all the material you use need to be heat treated.
3 What is the best way to hold the blade in the handle.

Well that will do for the moment as always I am sure there will be more questions

[pallin]

Re: Making Knives

Dalboy - If you check the "Similar Threads" at the bottom of this page, you'll find the answers to many of your questions on making knives. Like carving, it is a process that takes knowledge, skill, and perseverance.

[Claude]

Re: Making Knives

Hi, Derek.

You should get lots of responses on this one. I don't make my own, but info I've read on here indicate
1) industrial hacksaw blades, old straight razors, Sawzall blades, etc.
2) If you are careful, you don't have to re-heat-treat the metal. Slow speed grinding with a coarse grindstone, with frequent dunks in a can of water to keep the metal cool will prevent it from losing it's temper. You can also use a flat stone, and do it by hand, but it'll take a while. Even a belt sander will work nicely. Key point is keep the metal cool - if it turns blue, you've likely ruined the temper and it will need to be re-tempered.
3) If it already has a hole through the tang area, you could put a brass pin through it. Probably the easiest way would be to cut the wood in half lengthwise. Lay the tang on the wood and draw around the tang. Then cut away just enough wood from both sides (or only one) for the tang. Glue it in with some 30 minute epoxy (30 gives you much better working time to get everything straight than does the 5 minute).

Rick at Little Shavers Wood Carving Supply has detailed step-by-step instructions for making a knife from a straight razor. Good excuse for a trip to Portobello Road in London on a Saturday... I bought one there for £2 a few fears back.

Here's a You-Tube video about making a carving knife out of an old drill bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g829Cd3-CJU In this one, he re-tempers and then heat treats the blade.

Claude

[pallin]

Re: Making Knives

An Internet search of "Making Knives" turns up a lot of information.

[Buffalo Bif]

Re: Making Knives

Claude hit on all the high points. Add floor scraper blades to the list of materials, you can find them at the Homer store or similar, brand name Personna usually. Get the thicker ones. When Claude says 'dip frequently' he means every couple seconds, for the most part. Little Shavers was instrumental in getting me started.
Good luck, have fun, buy a box of bandaids.

[Brian T]

Re: Making Knives

Perhaps another approach would be to buy a blade from a bladesmith and learn what you need to have in the way of a personalized handle: the size, shape, attachment of the blade, finish and so on.
With that piece of the puzzle in place, then start blade making.

I bought three of the Haida-style crooked knife blades from Lee Valley (Crescent Knife Works/Vancouver, BC). I have big hands, long fingers. Without hurting myself, thumb- tip to pinkie-tip is 10". Most of my tools "feel" as if the handles are too small. So, I made the knife handles from 1" square stock with every intention of carving and sanding them down. It's been 6 months of fairly regular use and I've abandoned the notion of contouring the handles! I did carve some prototype handles in western red cedar, more for the size and shape than anything and they were easy to make. They would be OK in something like birch.

[sebastiaan56]

Re: Making Knives

My son made himself a very serviceable little carving knife from a piece of mdf for the handle and a broken hacksaw blade. Great sharpening practice! It really is very simple.

[forestkump]

Re: Making Knives

A friend of mine made me two from some steak knives. Before he started he took a some vice grips on the end of the blade and said if it breaks we have a winner. If it bends what do you want to do with them. Lucky for me the blade broke, which ment that the blade was tempered and would hold an edge. I use them both all the time now. I got the steak knives for free, so I would not have been out anything if they bent.
He gound the blade into a finishing knife and formed the wood handle that fits very well in your hand.

[dalboy]

Re: Making Knives

Thank you all. I will have a go. And thank you for all the links, I did do a search on here but with no results I never can seem to find anything when I do searches.
Should have thought about searching Google slipped my mind.
Claude the U-Tube link was great thank you.
All I need to do is get some material to have a go got plenty of wood for the handle.

[hobo]

Re: Making Knives

I like 01 tool steel . But if you can fine an old old car someone pushed off the Mtn the leaf spring steel makes a really great knife.

[ricaga]

I realize this is an old post but members write about finding similar posts at the bottom of the page. I assume this is no longer supported as I can't find a link like that anywhere.

[Brian T]

Wow. I sure made an old p0st.
Since then, I have made quite a number of knives, mostly with blades that I bought. The last thing I need to do is to become a blade smith. Much of what I'm doing uses the crooked knives ad adzes which are the common wood carving tools of the First Nations people here in the Pacific Northwest.

1. The handles. This is like selecting a tennis raquet for handle size. Palm up, fist grip, the tips of your second and third fingers should just touch the fat ball part of your thumb. For me, for knives and adzes, that is 7/8" diameter. 1" down to 3/4"is my comfortable range.
I tapered the nose and tails of the handles, they are just more comfortable to hold.

2. Hafting the blades. A few FN knife makers do center hafting. Most mount the blade in a surface groove, smears of epoxy then a whip finish of No. 18 tarred nylon ocean net fishing cord. I've made a couple dozen knives this way and not a single one has ever broken loose.

3. Making blades. Many kinds of knife steels and saw blades will make excellent wood carving knife blades. Draw the pattern on the steel. Hit the line with a series of little dashes with a Dremel and cut-off wheels. Bump, bump, bump, join the dots. My favorite source are the worn down, used/wrecked blades from farrier's hoof trimming crooked knives. I use chainsaw files to rough down the bevels from 25 degrees to 12 degrees.

[DiLeon]

Wow. I sure made an old p0st.
Since then, I have made quite a number of knives, mostly with blades that I bought. The last thing I need to do is to become a blade smith. Much of what I'm doing uses the crooked knives ad adzes which are the common wood carving tools of the First Nations people here in the Pacific Northwest.

1. The handles. This is like selecting a tennis raquet for handle size. Palm up, fist grip, the tips of your second and third fingers should just touch the fat ball part of your thumb. For me, for knives and adzes, that is 7/8" diameter. 1" down to 3/4"is my comfortable range.
I tapered the nose and tails of the handles, they are just more comfortable to hold.

2. Hafting the blades. A few FN knife makers do center hafting. Most mount the blade in a surface groove, smears of epoxy then a whip finish of No. 18 tarred nylon ocean net fishing cord. I've made a couple dozen knives this way and not a single one has ever broken loose.

3. Making blades. Many kinds of knife steels and saw blades will make excellent wood carving knife blades. Draw the pattern on the steel. Hit the line with a series of little dashes with a Dremel and cut-off wheels. Bump, bump, bump, join the dots. My favorite source are the worn down, used/wrecked blades from farrier's hoof trimming crooked knives. I use chainsaw files to rough down the bevels from 25 degrees to 12 degrees.

Do you have photo of the handle in number two? I got a bunch of old machetes I am redoing this sounds like a good way to secure a new handle? but they would be in the forge with fire tv show will it break????

[Brian T]

These are all surface mounts, the nose is canted 15 degrees. Not as hard on the wrist as a result.
The blades are the Haida-style blades from the Lee Valley Catalog, made by Crescent Knife Works, Vancouver, BC.

HaidaA.jpg

These are modified farrier's hoof trimming knife blades:

HaidaC.jpg

[photowhit]

I realize this is an old post but members write about finding similar posts at the bottom of the page. I assume this is no longer supported as I can't find a link like that anywhere.

I'm new here as well, I was thinking they use to have a section on making knives.

People start with making wood carving knives from many different avenues. It may surprise you that some of the best wood carving knife makers don't temper their own blades! Helvie starts with fully hardened blades and gradually shapes them being sure not to overheat the blades. I was surprised to learn Ron Wells(who sold his business to Mike Shipley who formed OCCTools) made knives from hacksaw blades, but hardened them after shaping them. These may have been just high carbon hacksaw blades or bimetal blades (circa 2000-2005?), maybe someday I'll learn as I keep reading on the subject.

A common starting point for many is mounting blades made for wood carving, like Warren Cutlery blades.

image.png
I had been told about this, and mounted a few myself;
299201797_5136097539833926_2205635000765335361_n.jpg
I recently bought an old carver's 'kit' and there were 3 knives made from Warren blades! Including his only hook knife a large pelican (I've only mounted small pelicans as upsweep detail knives)


Just cut a place for the blade and use a good 2 part epoxy to hold blade to wood and wood halves together. The shape by carving back or easier use a belt sander. This is very similar to how Helvie does their knives. they have some videos up on Youtube.

https://youtu.be/jIx_2ejYh1Y

I haven't watched this watched a few they posted 4-5 years ago.

FWIW - I ordered some blades from them less than a month ago, so many people have given such glowing reviews. I mostly have used flat ground blades, so this will be new to me. They have a wait list of 4-8 months for knives, but the blades are already shipped. $20-25 for most styles, the curves Mertz style goes for $30, I'm sure it's harder to cut and shape, particularly with hardened metal.