Make a Knife

As for how to make a knife, here's a rough step by step.

First you need to decide what kind of knife you want to make. Fixed, folder, big,small, traditional, tactical...

A 3-4" blade with a full tang and slab handles is the easiest to start with so that's what I will be describing here.

Once you have an idea of what you want to make search the internet for every bit of information on that type of knife. What you are looking for are construction tips and tricks and things not to do. The forums listed below are great sources of information.

Learn to draw knives. Seriously. Draw a picture of what you want. Make changes. Draw more. Keep drawing until it looks just the way you want it to. You don't want to change your plan halfway through making your knife. 

Now it's time to buy the raw materials. Just about anything you could think of will work for a handle. For the blade things get a little more limited. You want a steel that has enough carbon in it to get hard. The steel from your local home improvement store won't be suitable. Buy a known steel from a reputable source. I can't stress this enough IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IS IN A PIECE OF STEEL DON'T USE IT! You will at best get lucky and have a knife that performs OK, more likely you will have wasted all of your time and effort. Steel is the foundation of the knife, use a good one. 

There are two main classes of steel commonly used for knives. Air hardening or stainless  (A2, ATS-34, 154cm, 440c, CPMS30V, BG42) and Oil hardening or carbon (1095, 1080, 1050, 5160, 15N20, L6, O1, W1, W2). Air hardening steels usually have a high alloy content and require very high temperatures and long soak times to harden. A Heat treating furnace is required to heat treat these steels. Oil hardening steels are generally low alloy and can be heat treated using a torch or small forge. 

You may also read about Water hardening steels. (W1, W2, 1095, 1050) In the thicknesses used for most knives these steels will also be quenched in oil so I include them in the oil hardening list. 

For your first knife I reccomend getting help with the heat treating. It is the most important aspect of a knife. Also the easiest to mess up and the hardest to know if you got right without alot of experience and test equipment. If you get your first knife heat treated professionaly then no matter what else you know you'll have a knife that can perform with the best out there. Your second knife is a good one to start experimenting with heat treating on you own if you want to learn how. That way you can always test it against the first to see if you are on the right track.

 If you can find a knifemaker nearby that is willing to help with heat treating ask them what steel they are comfortable with and use that. Otherwise use an air hardeneing steel that can be sent to a profesional heat treater (due to EPA regulations most professional heat treaters can't do oil hardening steels.) 

One more quick note on steel. Steels with high Vanadium content such as 440V, 420V, S30V, and anything that starts with CPM are extremely difficult to cut, file, grind, sand, and sharpen. Even the pros don't like working with them. 

Ok, now that we know what we are making and what to make it out of it's time to make a knife. 

Make a photocopy of you drawing and glue it to your steel. 

Use a hacksaw with a new bi-metal blade to cut off as much as you can then use files to finish cutting the outline. 

Center-punch and drill all of your holes. Buy drill bits to match the handle pins you are going to use. I use 1/8" and 1/16"  brass or nickle-silver rods and cobalt drill bits. Use lots of lube and low speeds when drilling. knife steels are much harder than mild steel and will dull a dry drillbit in seconds.

Use a carbide tipped scribe or a drillbit about the same thickness as your steel to scribe a centerline for the edge. Hold the scribe on it's side on a flat surface. Keeping the knife flat on the surface drag the edge on the scribe to mark a line. Flip the knife over and do the same from the other side and you should have two parallel lines centered on the edge. You want these lines to be about .025" apart or a little thinner than a dime, a little thicker for oil hardening steels. You may have to mess around with placing shims under the scribe or the blade to achieve this. 

Use a sharpie to mark where you want the top of the blade bevels to end. Make sure both sides are the same. 

If you are not really comfortable with a file this trick will help you get  the ricasso (transition from the flat part under the handle slabs to the blade bevel) even. Take a piece of scrap steel and clamp it to your handle with one edge lined up with where you want the ricasso to be then from the other side drill through your pin holes with your matching drill bit into and through the scrap steel. Use some bits of pin material to keep it lined up and you can use it on both sides as a file guide.

Buy a good file. A 10 or 12 inch mill bastard file. Nicholson brand are good and available just about anywhere. Don't bother with a cheap file it will cost you more in the end. Don't ever buy a used file and if you already have one buy a new one anyway as yours has probably been banging around in a tool box too long to be sharp. A sharp file will cut fast and leave you with nice flat bevels and clean lines. A dull file will take forever to remove material and leave you with convex bevels and washed out lines. 

One more note on files. Pick the file up off the material on the return stroke. Only push the file in one direction. Dragging it back will knock the edges off the teeth.

File the bevels. Clamp your knife blank to a solid workbench or table by the handle. You want the edge of the knife to overhang the edge a little bit.  File a forty-five degree bevel down to your scribe lines on each side. Now you can see how close you are to your line without having to get down and look close.  File about halfway to you lines then flip it iver and do the other side. Carefully file until the file is just touching both lines at the same time. Take some time to make sure both sides are exactly the same. If they aren't the blade will likely warp during heat treating. 

If you are using oil hardening steel heat treat it at this point. 

It's time to learn how to use sandpaper. Get yourself some silicon carbide wet/dry sandpaper in 220, 500, 1000 and 2000 grits. Sandpaper by itself is pretty worthless so we'll need somethin to back it up with. Find a piece of wood or metal about 3/4-1" square by a foot or so long. Now cut your sandpaper into strips the same width as your stick. You now have a sanding stick. Just hold a strip of sandpaper on the bottom with your hands. 

Clamp your blade in a vise by the handle with the edge down. Use you file to make sure the spine is at the final shape and square to the sides. Sand the spine with 220 then 500 grit. Only sand back about 1/2 inch into where the handle material starts. Do the same thing to the edge side.

Get a board as wide as your blade and an inch or two thick and 2 feet or so long. Clamp it to your bench with about 8 inches hanging over the edge. Clamp your knife to the board with the point even with the end of the board. If it hangs over you will stab yourself and it will hurt. Trust me. 

Sand the unbeveled parts of the blade first. Again you only need to go back about a half inch under the handle material. Start with 220 going back and forth lengthwise until you have removed all of the mill scale. Then use 500 at about a 30-45 degree angle until all of the 220 scratches are removed. Do both sides of the knife. Use lots of lube to make the sanding go faster. I use WD-40 or Windex. You'll only get a couple of strokes before you have to move to a fresh spot on the sandpaper strip. Don't try to make the sandpaper last it'll only add more time. Waste the stuff.

Now sand the blade bevels. You will probably have to remove some wood from the board around the belly of the blade in order to sand the bevels. Use 220 lengthwise until all file marks are removed. Be careful to keep it flat on the bevels to avoid washing out your upper line. You want that line to stay crisp.  You will have to clean the blade and the board after every grit change to keep particles from theprevious grit from scratching the finish. Go to 500 grit at a 30-45 degree angle untill all the 220 marks are gone. Sand both sides to 500 grit.

Now get out your slabs of handle material. Make sure they are flat. Lay the blade on one of the slabs about where you want it and drill a hole through one of the pin holes into and through the handle slab. place a pin through both holes then drill another hole and place another pin. Now you can drill the rest of the holes in the slab. Trace a line around the steel blank with a scribe. Repeat with other slab on other side of knife. 

Use a hacksaw and files to remove material to about 1/16" from your scribed line. Don't worry aboiut the front edge of the handle slabs at this point leave them long. Now put both slabs on the knife with your temporary pin pieces. File the slabs down to the steel and get it all smoothed out and square to the sides. Sand with 220 and 500 grit. If you have a light colored handle material the wet/dry sandpaper will stain it so do the steel separate then do the slabs on the knife with aluminum oxide or garnet paper. 

Put both of you handle slabs together without the blade in between and align with pins. Mark the front edge and saw file and sand until they are just where you want. Sand the front edges to whatever grit you will finish the whole thing to and buff it if you are going to. Apply any finish to the front edge at this point too. You are not going to touch this part anymore so make sure it is finished good.

Your blade is now ready to be heat treated. You should be drawing your next knife while you wait. 

Ok, you've got the blade back and it's a rainbow of colors. It's time to finish sanding. Sand the spine with 1000 then 2000 grit. Sand all the way around the handle too. Sand the handle area with the handle slabs in place. Make sure the edges of the handle slabs are sanded good because we aren't going to sand them again.

  Repeat the 500 grit sanding on the flats and bevels to remove the color and any scratches that may have apeared then use 1000 grit lengthwise until all the 500 grit is gone. Do both sides. Now use the 2000 grit but don't go back and forth, move straight from ricasso to tip in one long stroke. Be careful at the ricasso to avoid getting little j shaped swirls. What you are aiming for is all lines straight and parallel running continous from ricasso to tip regardless of the curve of the edge or spine. You will get maybe 2 or 3 strokes per fresh section of sandpaper. Once both sides are done you can go back and do the blade flats the same way with 1000 and 2000. Be careful not to let the sandpaper touch the bevels when you are doing the flats. Use a paper towel or  a rag under the blade to keep any grits embedded in the wood from scratching the backside. 

Use 2000 grit paper to gently soften the edge of the spine all the way around the knife. Soften the edges of the handle material where it meets the steel too. You want to soften it enough that it won't cut you but not much more than that. All but the front edge which should be left sharp. All natural handle materials expand and contract with changes in temperature and humidity. Most manmade materials will move with changes in temperature too just not very much. If you leave these edges sharp they will eventually move past each other and leave a sharp ridge exposed. it won't be enough to cut anything but it will feel like the knife doesn't fit together well. By softening the edges just a touch you make it very difficult to feel this misalignment.

If you want mark your name on the blade now is the time to do it. The lowtech way is to cover the blade with nail polish. Cover the whole thing and make sure there are no leaks. Now you can use a scribe or nail or anything kinda pointy to sign your name on the blade. 

Use PC Board etchant from Radio Shack to etch the lines you scratched through the nail polish. Mix a little bit in a plastic cup with about 1/3 warm water. use an eye dropper to make a little puddle covering your name. Make sure you covered the whole name. Let that sit for about 5 minutes and rinse off with water. Clean off the nail polish then clean the whole blade with baking soda and hot water expecially the logo area. The baking soda neutralizes the acid. If you forget this step it will be a rusty mess in a couple of weeks.

Now wrap that shiny blade with a ton of masking tape. Wrap up to about 1/8" away from the front edge of the handle slabs. Don't be stingy with the tape. If anything happens to the blade after the next step there ain't no going back.

Glue on the hande slabs. Use the slowest setting 2 part epoxy you can find. Clean all glue surfaces first and scuff up your pins. Now glue the whole thing together with the pins in place. Clamp it up real tight and use a rag and acetone to clean up any squeezeout. Pay really close attention to the front edge of the handle slabs. Keep them clean. Let that cure for a day or two. 

Once the epoxy is fully cured you can start to shape your handle. Use files to shape and then sand. Be careful sanding around the pins, the handle will want to wear away around them. Use a backer board as much as you can when sanding. Try to leave a thin line of handle untouched around the blade material. I like to profile the handle to within 1/16 of the steel. That way you have a flat extending 1/16 from each side of the steel. Be careful to keep this line as straight as possible and the same distance all around and on both sides.

Apply handle finish. I like about 10 coats of tung oil.

Sharpen the blade. Unwrap it then place asingle layer of masking tape on each side leaving about 1/16 inch exposed at the edge. This will keep any grits from the sharpener from scratching the blade. 

Take pictures before you scratch it all up cutting stuff. 

Cut stuff.

That was way more than I intended to write. I hope it helps. If you have any questions feel free to ask. 

     Don Fogg's forum is a great place to learn more about forging and high end embelishment.

     Another forum similar to Bladeforums. 

    Alpha knife supply. A great place to get high tech blade steels.They also carry titanium, natural and stabilised woods, and ivory for handles. Chuck, the owner is one of the nicest guys around and he can tell you where to get just about anything you'd need.

     Great place to buy blade steels. They don't carry any of the really exotic stuff like cpm3v or Talonite. For stuff like that call Chuck above.

     Paul Bos heat treating. Paul Bos is widely regarded as the best in the industry. He does all the heat treating for Buck knives and many top custom  makers. If you want to use stainless steel you'll need a professional heat treater. Carbon steels you can do at home with a torch or simple forge.