It’s been a long time since I posted anything about knifemaking. I’ve basically given it up for now in favor of running. Someday I’d like to get back into knifemaking, but I want to get some better supplies before I do (e.g., a Bader bench grinder and some ATS-34 steel). I made my last [...]
I’ve finished my first knife this year. I started running in February, so a lot of my free time has been spent doing that. But Amy and Aaron were out of town for a night a couple of weeks ago, so I took the opportunity to start a new knife. I started a 15″ Bowie [...]
Knife #7 is finished. I started it on Monday and finished it today (Friday). So it’s my fastest project, and I think it’s my best home project so far. It’s my first steel knife with filework, and that turned out ok. Unfortunately, when I epoxied the handles on, the file work filled unevenly. So some [...]
I finished knife #6 this weekend. The pics were shot on my workbench, and the lighting isn’t very good. It’s really tough to take good knife pictures. This was an experimental knife made with some 1/8″ stainless steel I got from Home Depot. It’s not knife-quality steel, but it’s good enough to practice on. It [...]
I finished knife #5 today. I wrapped it a few days ago, and I polished and sharpened it today. I learned a lot making this knife. I now know more of what I can and can’t do with the tools I have. Most of the limitations of my tools affect the blade appearance (e.g., no [...]
I was on vacation this week, so I did some more work on knife #5. I’ve got the guard and handles on, and I’ve made the wooden sheath. I’ve also put some stain and polyurethane sealer on the oak. Now, I have to do a lot of polishing work to get off the glue and [...]
Over the Labor Day weekend, I started on knife #5. I recently watched an awesome video on making katanas, and now I’m extremely fired up to make one. Unfortunately, I don’t yet have all the equipment or skills to make such a large blade, so I decided to make a “small” tanto knife instead. The [...]
This is a cheesed-together panoramic shot of my workshop in the garage. It’s not much to look at today, but it’s coming together slowly and surely. Last weekend I built the new workbench on the right, and I’m going to mount some of my tools on it soon. I need to get some lights installed [...]
A few days ago my wife’s grandfather gave me some cool new knifemaking supplies. He sent me three antlers, some oak, some cocobolo, and some koa wood. This should make some interesting handles. He and my father-in-law have also graciously offered to give me several other tools and supplies that I need for knifemaking. They [...]
I found these two early photos of knife #4, and I thought I’d post them so everyone could see what a real knife-in-progress looks like. These were taken about 3 weeks before I finished the knife. The handle slabs had been epoxied on, and the epoxy got on the blade and just about everywhere else. [...]
