Knife Making

[Maximus Ram]

Not sure if this is the correct section for this but anyways..

Does anyone here make their own knives ?
I have been looking at the blanks on e-bay and it doesn't look to complicated if you can get all of the correct stuff.
If you have, where do you get your supplies from ? and who would have a good instructional video that doesn't cost an arm and a leg ?
This seems like it would be fun and interesting to do. It would be cool to make a knife and gice it as a present to family and friends.

Thanks
Matt

 

[68m]

knives

I was thinking the same and came across some here that seemed reasonable. I have not ordered them yet.

http://www.woodcraft.com/

TN

 

[snipecatcher]

When I was about 16-17 I took an old machete blade and shaped it into a knife with a grinder, then made the handle scales out of wood. It would have looked pretty nice, but then I realized I couldn't drill into the tempered steel for the rivets to hold the handle on. I still have the shaped blade, maybe one day I'll do the whole heat treating process to finish the project. I've been to a knife-makers workshop and seen some very fine custom knives. It looks like a very interesting hobby.
-Dan

 

[XL Bar]

Hey Snipe. I used to make knives in my spare time. Both by the stock reduction (grinding) and forging methods.

You can draw the temper out of the handle area with a torch. Protect the blade's heat treat by sticking it in a bucket of moist sand or water with just the handle sticking out. Polish the handle steel till it is bright. Slowly play the torch over the areas you want to drill until you see the tempering colors start to appear. First will be a light straw or tan color, changing to purple, then to blue and then to grey. Stop heating when the steel is just changing from blue to grey and quench in water. The steel should be soft enough to drill with a standard hss bit.

Check out Texas Knifemaker's Supply for more knifemaking goodies. There are also some good books by Goddard about home knifemaking. Amazon has them.

Brian