The fucking irritating knife-making thread.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > The fucking irritating knife-making thread.

10 Beers: May 21, 2005; Shit! I didn't bring a knife.

MC Hawking posted:

This thread is cool and now I want to get a knife kit. I know it's just slapping together some pre-made parts but hey, at least I can do the wood finishing myself!

That's what I get for coming into diy every year or so :v

Watches and knives, man. Watches and knives.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2015 02:43

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 16:56

10 Beers: May 21, 2005; Shit! I didn't bring a knife.

Trabant posted:

Had steel left over, friend saw my first attempt and reacted with "I want one!", so wife suggested I make knives for said friend. I decided to go with cheese knives:

These are nos. 2 and 3 I ever made, so uh... scratches and dishing are still heavily featured. But they're well-received, so I'll just keep going and hopefully improve.

Until I lose access to the belt grinder :-/

I like em! Very good looking knives.

# ¿ May 16, 2016 13:20

10 Beers: May 21, 2005; Shit! I didn't bring a knife.

I'd really like to get into blacksmithing/knifemaking, but I have no idea where to start. Ilve looked online and don't see any classes in my area except for a week long course by Gil Hibben. Any ideas or resources for getting started? Even if it's just where to get a cheap forge and anvil and what YouTube videos to watch?

# ¿ Oct 7, 2018 19:41

10 Beers: May 21, 2005; Shit! I didn't bring a knife.

mr_selfdestruct posted:

I started with a piece of railroad track and a forge made.from a metal paint can. Forges are not cheap if you want to buy one, and the price of anvils have skyrocketed in the last few years. I suggest starting out with home made things to see if you like it and build on it from there. Propane burners can be made easily from black pipe, or stainless pipe. I watch endless hours of youtube by people like joey van der steeg, mark asprey, alec steele , brian brazeal, and then just give it a try myself.

Thanks! I've seen propane forges on Etsy and eBay for around $150. Are forges like tattoos, you get what you pay for?

# ¿ Oct 8, 2018 22:38

10 Beers: May 21, 2005; Shit! I didn't bring a knife.

Leperflesh posted:

Yeah, to some extent. Although also in the second-hand arena, you are always dealing with the wide disparity of how much people think their crap is worth.

To begin with you should evaluate your workspace. If you are working indoors (like in a garage), your forge will need really good forced-air ventilation, and you'll need to obviously clear lots of space of flammables. If you're working outside, you'll want rain/weather cover over your workspace/storage space, or you'll want portable equipment that is easy to move into place and put away.

Then you'll have to decide if you're going for a gas or coal/charcoal forge. There's advantages and disadvantages with each. A portable propane forge is probably simplest and cleanest to deal with, but a charcoal/coal forge is probably substantially cheaper and easier to improvise.

For pure knifemaking, a very small gas forge can be adequate. The depth of the forge limits how much of your blade you can heat at once: you can work on just part of the metal when hammering out, but for the heat treat you need to be able to bring all of the knife (exclusive of the handle) to an even heat before quenching. But otherwise, constraining the volume, entrance, and (if it's open) back of the forge is good, because smaller = less fuel and time to heat up. Hence the common tiny paint-can gas forge used by a lot of small knife makers.

If you think you might want to do some more general blacksmithing, though, a larger forge might be the way to go.

I do think classes are highly valuable. You learn so much in a couple hours of instruction... just the very basics of managing the forge, heating steel, handling it, and the basic hammer work of drawing out a piece of metal. You can watch a bunch of videos and get a pretty good idea, but there's nothing quite like having an experienced instructor to instantly notice what you're doing wrong and correct it before you waste time (or worse, hurt yourself).

I'd suggest checking the Blaksmithing/Metalworking thread for a lot more about general forgemaking and so forth, even if you're focused on just knifemaking.

I follow that thread, too! The biggest issue I have around here is all classes are 1 weekend/1 week, and expensive. Not weekly/monthly that I could draw out.
Thanks for all the help!

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 00:50

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > The fucking irritating knife-making thread.