What is the most difficult step of knifemaking for you?

Fitting and aligning handles onto hidden tangs is what drives me the most crazy... Committing to put the epoxy in there and glue it up is what I find the "hardest"...
 
Trying to figure out when it is done.I can always find one more thing to fix till I finally just have to quit.
Stan
 
Those are all very good, I'll say for me all of the ones mentioned so far, and slotting a guard. I know I'm not very good at it, so I've committed the next several blades to be hidden tangs, that's the only way I know of to get better, is by making them, I guess aside from that, handsanding, to a degree I hate it, but I usually put or try to put a hamon on my blades, so part of it is awful, while the other part is getting to see the birth of the hamon, which is nothing but pure joy! I get pretty anxious when I'm drilling the handles too, no matter if it's a full tang or hidden tang, I'll stop measure, drill some, stop measure, drill some, kind of like an OCD kid, trying to get out the door, oh that's me too!
Rex
 
Since I do stock removal the most monotonous part is standing at the bandsaw cutting out blanks. For me, the hardest part is deciding what I want to do with handles.
 
Grinding.
I have no depth perception, whatever that is, and I’m using a POS Grizzly grinder. One speed = Hang On. With that combination I can make mistakes, on the average, ten times faster than normal.

But Hey, I love it. If I didn’t I wouldn’t have all of these knife shaped pieces of junked steel laying around:biggrin:

Todd
 
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For me, the hardest part is finding time to do it. Full time student, afterschool activities, and a part time job eats up all of my time. Any time I have left I have for homework, eating, sleeping, and occasionally I have a few hours total that I can relax.
 
I have to agree with Mike Carter. I hate sitting at the bandsaw and cutting. It is much better now with the new bandsaw but it still isn't that fun. My most difficult thing is making guards.
 
The most difficult part any more is getting my butt to doing it, the rest aint bad and I have a blast once I'm going, just seems like there are so many other things in the way to get motivated anymore.
 
Ill throw in with Mike, I absolutly hate cutting out on the bandsaw.
And yes, those last few $%&#@! scratches that refuse to go away.

Sean
 
I am surprised no one that I saw mentioned sharpening???

I've sharpened so many goldang knives that it's not difficult, just kind of a pain. After about a million years (it seems) of doing it freehand I have finally embraced setting my basic edge on the grinder and finishing it with a basic Lansky system.
 
I've sharpened so many goldang knives that it's not difficult, just kind of a pain. After about a million years (it seems) of doing it freehand I have finally embraced setting my basic edge on the grinder and finishing it with a basic Lansky system.


LOL James it's so funny I could almost hear your voice in those words "monotone".....I think you forgot-how you do it with one eye? The grinder takes a lot of skill as well. I love to sharpen by hand but you just gave me a reality check: when I get to your level and have touched a few blades over the years, I will quote you! LOL I don't know if you encouraged me or scared me, but I loved the comment. Keep up the nice work you do.......
 
It would be slotting the guard, just when it looks good you get it on and there is one little gap ARRRG !! My least favorite is hand sanding those last stubborn scratches ...steve
 
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