First knives (in progress)

Steve P

Member
I tried making a few knifes on my own without much success. I then found the WIP forum and the thread "USA knifemakers knife kit tutorial and copied and followed as much as I could. On my first couple of attempts I was frustrated because I was taking one knife through the process so I was not getting much practice on each step and when I made a critical error had to pitch it and start over. So this time I decided to take 8 knives through at once. I first printed the design picture to just fit on my stock. I then cut out the outline and transferred it to a lightweight cardboard box and cut it out again. Finally I transferred this to my 1095 stock. I drilled a couple of hole where it had a tight radius and cut the rest on my band saw. Using my NWG I ground the outer profile of the knives. Drilled several holes in the handle to help with the wright and balance. Then I used a chainsaw file to help get a sharper transition and the flat ground the initial bevel on the knives. I took each blade to 220 grit on the grinder. This is where I have 8 blades sitting waiting for me to find time for them. Many thanks to John Dabney's WIP tutorial for getting me this far.
 

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They look very nice to me. Why did you choose 1095 as your steel? Do you intend to send them out for HT?
 
Thanks

Thanks everyone for the kind words and encouragement. I been traveling for work and kids started hockey so have not had the time to send in the shop as I would like but did make some progress this weekend. I chose to use 1095 because I wanted something fairly basic that if I messed up I would not have a lot invested in the metal. Now that I am close to heat treating I realized there may have been a few easier choices but I cant change it now so I will send them out for heat treating.
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This weekend was sanding the flats. Not sure this was the correct sand paper to use because when sanding the dust seemed to be more abrasive than metal but I did get through all 8. You can see in the second picture that this blade had a slightly rounded area at the top that I just could not sand it out. In the third picture you can see the edges I have left for heat treating. Some edges are a little thin and others might be a little thick but I hope at least a few come back straight enough to move on in the process. In the 5th picture you see the tops of the blades and it also shows that I used 2 difference thicknesses of metal. I think the thinner one was 1/8 in. I now plan on sanding the bevels a bit more, that are at 80 git now, I plan on taking them to 120 with the belt grinder and then 220 by hand. Once that is done, hopefully next weekend, I will send them off for heat treating. Any suggestions for handle materials? I would like to do some in wood and others in synthetics.
 
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