Before you start

OK, so you want to make your first knife. Before plunging (and possibly getting lost) into the details, I think it make sense to have a look what steps need to be done to get the idea to the finished knife before you go out and get first tools or materials.

Here I just want to mention what I found was relevant to think about, I will post separate articles on each of the steps later. My main point here is to start the thinking and planning process. I was not as thorough and it would have made sense to consider some possible issues or limitations in advance.

Workshop

Have a look at the space you have available. It may be a well equipped mechanical shop of some kind, it may be your garage, but also just a basement or even a room inside your house or flat. You do not need a whole lot of space. I have set up a workshop in part of our basement with a area of about 2x2m. More would be nice, but it can be done.

The questions you should ask yourself are:

• Is it OK to produce and and noise there (always keep your neighbours in mind). Most of what you will be doing is either loud, dirty, or both
• Is power provided (at first just for illumination and maybe for a drill)
• If you plan on that - could you be doing your own heat treat there?
• How is the ventilation? If limited, you may want to do the 'smelly part' (gluing, degreasing, oiling handles, etc.) elsewhere.
• General safety (what are the local rules and what are sensible do's and dont's)

Tools

You will need quite a few tools and I will try to summarize on that, but the basic ones are:

• Sturdy working bench
• Means to keep and organize your tools (you can not have them all on the working bench)
• A vise
• Hack saw + bi-metal blades
• Files
• Wet sanding paper in grit 60 - 400
• Flat surface for sanding (stone block or a tile)
• Clamps (different sizes and shapes)
• A drill (ideally a drill press + a small vise) + drill bits (HSS-Cobalt)
• Epoxy
• Some kind of wood finish oil - Tung oil seems a good choice
• Metal ruler and calliper are a great help
• Notobook, pencil, permanent marker (a thin and a wide one)
• some more stuff :)

Knife design

You do not need to have a complete and in detail though-out design, but having a rough idea where you want to start helps to plan what tools you will need and it also helps you to estimate the budget. I have in mind basic features like:

• Type of knife (shape and size of the blade)
• Full tang or hidden tang
• Handle materials (bolsters, scales or block, pins)
• Sheath or no sheath

Supplies

Depending where you live the availability and price of materials necessary for knifemaking will differ greatly. Do some research for knife making supplies, in particular for:

• steel (thickness of 3-4 mm and width of about 35-40 mm would about right for an outdoor knife)
• handle making (wood, pins, bolsters)
• sheath tooling (leather, tools)

Steels

Developments in (mainly stainless) steels in the past years have give rise to steels that on knife fora are often designated as 'super' steels and there are endless discussions whether steel X is better than steel Y. First of all - there is no perfect steel - different steels will perform better at some tasks and worse at others. Today's 'super steels' are complex, high alloy steels that not only are expensive, these are also often very wear resistent (read - super hard to grind) and require complex heat treatment. My advice is - stay away from those. I am talking about steels like S35VN, Elmax, M390, HAP-40, S110V and similar.

I would actually suggest that you stay with simple carbon steels like 1075, 1084, 1095, O1, W2, 52100 or if that is your preference - simple stainless steels like 440C, AEB-L or Niolox. Not only are these considerably cheaper, they are easier to HT (see below for more) and easier to grind and also easier to sharpen. Still - with a proper HT you are going to get a knife that will match outperform (in particular the carbon steels) in certain regards the much more expensive super steels.

Heat treatment

There are many videos on youtube how you can do the HT with very simple tools. Simple carbon steels (for example 1075, 1084, O1) are relatively forgiving when it comes to the temperatures and thus you do not need a kiln with precise temperature control.

But if your location does not allow (or you simply do not want to start with you own HT), than do check for services online. Again - depending on where you live the options for outsourcing HT will vary. For example - if you only find HT services for stainless steels, it would make no sense to start making knives from carbon steel and the other way round. So check your steel choices against the available HT services before you buy steel for knifemaking.

Introduction & Motivation

Hello everyone,

 I guess a short introduction is in place - in particular to avoid false hopes that this blog is being written ab an experienced knife maker that is now going to share his hard earned experience. Wrong :) I am standing at the very beginning of a knife making journey and though that it could be of interest of other to share 'live' the first steps, decisions & mistakes.

Who am I

Since our existing experience and daily life has a great influence on how we approach new problems I would give you a brief view of who I am. I was born and raised in Slovakia where I studied nuclear physic. Together with my then-girlfriend we came to Germany for a PhD (both in physics). Being a PhD student at GSI in Darmstadt was a great experience and I met some extraordinary people - many of whom I feel honoured to be able to call my friends. Once accomplished we moved north for a post-doc position and once that one approached to its end 3 years later we started to look for a job in industry and finally ended up as developers in lithography optics and that is what we both do as of 2016. For me it means in-front-of computer job.

For a long time analogue photography was for me the escape and creative realisation, but once our little girl was born the time became more constraint and I had to reduce those activities a lot. In the mean time I became interested in Japanese kitchen knives and free hand sharpening. But there was a growing need for a more creative manual work and in early 2016 that just bursted in a knifemaking.

Where I stand

As of march 2016 I have a tiny (just under 4m2) workshop with most tools that are necessary to make simple knives.  The only power tools I plan to use is a drill press - the rest is manual or manual jigs (more about that in future posts).

 I have made 3 blades and I am just starting to make a first handle. I hope there is much more to come - I am eager to learn and try new things. I do not expect to get beyond hobby, but I would like to be able to make a usable outdoor and kitchen knives, even if some technique is going to remain out of my reach. It would be an accomplishment should I ever get as far as being able to sell a knife here and then, but from current perspective that is just a day dreaming.

Please note

You may have noted already - I am not a man of few words. So of you have any questions or comments - please do not hesitate to share or ask. I will try to help if I can.

If you are a knife maker yourself and find I have miss represented some information I would be most thankful for a correction. After all - I am just learning the craft.

If you have particular topic or questions you would like to hear covered or answered - just go ahead and ask. I will do my best.

So - enough of the introduction - let's get started :)