Making a knife by hand

[MacGyver]

So for the last few years, I've kind of wanted to get into making some blades, but haven't.  Time and lack of tooling really put a damper on my plans.  I told myself that I would start when I could find a decent deal on a grinder, but never got around to it.  Well fast forward to the holidays last year, and I had a little time on my hands.  I decided to give it a go without the expensive tooling and do it by hand.  Here are the results of my efforts with nothing but hand tools - hacksaw, a couple of good files, and various sandpapers.

 

This started as a piece of 3/16" O1 tool steel.  Cutting it with the hacksaw didn't take nearly the time I thought it was going to.  I have a bandsaw, but in the spirit of "handmade", wanted to try it with the hacksaw.  I'd say it took about an hour to cut the profile.  I then proceeded to clean it up with the files, and let me just say that a good file, kept clean can really remove some metal.  I put together a jig to hold the blade, and each side took about an hour and a half to get where I wanted it.  Mind you, I likely could have cut this down some, but my kids wanted to help and I went slow to keep from screwing it up.

 

I finished the blade by getting it non-magnetic with a torch and a quench in warm oil.  I then heat treated in a small oven a couple of different times.  I wish I had taken some pictures of the blade at this point.  The scales are some cedar heartwood I recovered.  I sharpened it on a standard Lansky set and finished on a strop.  I really put it through some torture and it held its edge better than a lot of factory knives I've owned. 

 

I'd say my overall time spent was about 8 hours.

 

Here is the finished product:

 

 

 

 

I guess the moral of this story is don't let a lack of power tooling stop you from doing something fun.

[Erik88]

Looks awesome!

[Randall53]

That's one great looking knife. Good job!!

[UncleJak]

I love the shape of the handle! Great job! Sent barefoot from the hills of Tennessee

[xjsnake]

Nice look, that little hint of a recurve behind the belly will make a huge difference in performance.

[RED333]

WOW, ya done good!

[Trekbike]

I'll echo the others, great job for sure! You'll need to come up with a knife model name. My suggestion is, Gyver. How clever is that.... :)

[MacGyver]

Nice look, that little hint of a recurve behind the belly will make a huge difference in performance.

Yeah, the blade shape turned out well for a simple jig. You'll notice a little low spot in the blade. I'll adjust my filing in the future to correct that.

[MacGyver]

I'll echo the others, great job for sure! You'll need to come up with a knife model name. My suggestion is, Gyver. How clever is that.... :)

I gave this one as a gift, so it's truly one of a kind. One thing is for sure - the process makes you appreciate the work that goes into a true custom and the price associated it.

[Spots]

Looks really good. I encourage every knife lover to make their own at least once, whether its by forging, hand filing or grinding. Once you do it really opens your eyes to the amount of work and thought that goes in to a good blade. Awesome work man, maybe one day you can come spend a day in the forge and hammer one out. Tapatalk ate my spelling

[mikegideon]

OK... I was gonna joke and say it needs some jimping. Then, I looked at the second picture. Good job. It's easy to tell you're a knife guy just by looking at it.

[MacGyver]

A good belt grinder would have removed material a lot faster, but it would also be a lot easier for someone with little experience to screw it up that way.  Doing by hand wasn't so slow to make me not want to do it again.  I kind of want to do some cleavers it I can come up with a design I like.

[MacGyver]

Looks really good. I encourage every knife lover to make their own at least once, whether its by forging, hand filing or grinding. Once you do it really opens your eyes to the amount of work and thought that goes in to a good blade. Awesome work man, maybe one day you can come spend a day in the forge and hammer one out. Tapatalk ate my spelling

I love to get a forge going, but I learned on coal with a squirrel cage.  If I ever do it, I'll have to convert to gas or I'm pretty sure the communists in my homeowners' association will picket in my driveway.

[peejman]

Nice work!  Can you give some perspective on size?

[sigmtnman]

Nice work.

 

 

I love to get a forge going, but I learned on coal with a squirrel cage.  If I ever do it, I'll have to convert to gas or I'm pretty sure the communists in my homeowners' association will picket in my driveway.

 

Surely the HOA does not allow picketing.  :D

[MacGyver]

Nice work!  Can you give some perspective on size?

 

The blade is 3-3/4" Total length is just under 8". 

[Monkeyman2500]

Wow man, for a first time that looks great! It really looks like you ment to make that dip in the blade.

[BJB]

Nice job Mac

[ncldwell]

Obviously a lot more talented with a file and hacksaw than I am...

[MacGyver]

Obviously a lot more talented with a file and hacksaw than I am...

You'd be really surprised! 

 

With both of those tools, it's really hard to remove enough metal  fast enough to really screw it up.  You get a lot of indication that your method needs some correction.  I made a simple jig.  When I say simple, I mean a block of wood with a couple of eyebolts in it to keep the file at a consistent angle and not let it go past the ricasso.  I clamped the work piece to it and went to town.  I actually walked away from the process being surprised at letting myself think it was more complicated than it was.  It took some patience, but was quite rewarding.

[MacGyver]

Here's a couple more pictures of the blank after rough cutting with the hacksaw, starting filing and after tempering:

 

 

 

 

One note on the last picture - sort of a lesson learned.  I used hardware store boric acid during tempering to act as an anti-scaling compound.  In the future, I think I'll spring for some commercial compound, as the leftover residue from the boric acid was so hard to remove that I found myself thinking that I'd rather deal with the effects of scaling.  It couldn't have been any worse.

[Spook]

That's an awesome job. I'm envious. Hope to have time to try something like that someday.