My First Knife

[Perry Winkle]

I completed my first knife during a bladesmithing class I took last week.


I'm pretty proud of it, despite the flaws. The most obvious problem with the knife is that the handle is made to fit my hand and the blade is undersized in comparison. I could go back, fix it and then spend another couple of hours refinishing it so it looks nice again.

I think I'll keep it around as-is to remind me of my mistake.

The whole album of pictures that were captured during the process are here.

Anyway. I'll call out a few of the pictures and provide some commentary.

I forged out 3 blades on the first day of class. Two hidden tang blades and one full tang blade. The full tang was set aside early on due to time constraints.

Here are the two hidden/stub tang blades after they've been rough ground and heat treated and then cleaned up after the heat treat.


This is one of my favorite parts: hand finishing. I'm sanding out 400 grit scratches with 600 grit Rhynowet paper.



Here I am filing the shoulders off so that the ricasso and guard fit together without gaps. The file guide has a layer of carbide on top to keep the file from destroying it.


After the blade is filed and sanded to 600 grit. I etched the blade. This is done to show up any flaws in the blade, especially for a newbie maker like me. The etching brings out any remaining < 600 grit scratches, among other flaws.



Filing the guard nearly drove me insane. You really can't see what you're doing...



At this point the guard has been fitted to the blade, the handle material has been drilled out and it's all been stuck together with Acraglass.



When that is hard, you take it back to the grinder to shape the handle. Then you hit it on the buffer and you're done, aside from sharpening the blade...