The Amateur Crafter: Project 3.0: First Design!

I’ve decided to try and make a fixed blade, full length tang, drop point, possibly a convex grind, small neck knife. Whew! Imagine trying to explain that verbally. From the photos in the previous article, one can get a good idea of what I want. I like knives that are simple but have elegance in their design. I don’t necessarily feel that form should come before function but I do feel that there’s no reason that it can’t come in a close second. My knife’s purpose is a simple general purpose camping knife. Depending on the type of grind, it may see use for simple cutting tasks or even processing small wood pieces for a campfire. I may even try several different grinds, including a hollow grind for skinning carcasses. It’s important to note that I’m not making the knives just yet; I’m making the template. There are two reasons for this. First, if I wish to reuse this design I’d like an actual model to go by for future reference. Having a template already made to scale will make it much easier to duplicate in the future. Second, the paper that I've printed my design onto will not stand up very well to quenching but copying a completed template will. As stated in previous articles, this method will generate a lot of heat that can affect the properties of the blade steel. So, keeping the steel from heating up will be necessary as I grind the profile or the edge into the blade. I’ll use just plain water in the bucket in front of the Grizzly to do this. 

My first design attempt. As of this writing, I’m undecided if I wish to use 2 or 3 pins along the handle. Personally, I don’t much prefer pins more than I would screws but to keep the design simple, and because I’m still learning, I’ll use pins. For scales, I was going to use just “plain-jane” cheap, readily available wood. I would prefer if it were already milled 4 square but I can deal with it if it’s not. I may later decide to try some G10 or Micarta.

 The altered design. I felt that the height of the blade from edge to spine was a bit too much so I made it more subdued. I think that the final design looks quite good.

This is the knife that inspired my design. It comes from a picture in Custom Knifemaking: 10 Projects from a Master Craftsman by Tim McCreight.

But the grind can come later. I won’t start that process until I’ve got the shape and profile completed. And I won’t actually make the template with a grind anyway. So, to start with, I need some material. This is blade steel I’m working with. The size is 5/32” x 1-1/2” 1095 CRA steel purchased from Admiral Steel. To give an idea of what that means 1095 is an industrial designation, meaning that the 1000 range specifies carbon steel and 95 means that it has approx. 0.95% carbon in it. CRA stands for cold-rolled annealed. That is a process to form the steel into shape and induce ductility or relieve internal stresses as a result of cold forming. 

Cutting my 1095 steel into manageable sections. It actually comes from Admiral Steel in 96” lengths. Cutting it into shorter lengths may limit the number of blades I can produce from them, but it also means less space taken up by the material.

First step cut the blank. Originally I was planning to take several paper copies of my design that I made earlier and cut them out and paste them onto the blanks. Because I don’ t think that the paper will hold up to this process, I'll simply make a template first. Later, I’ll want to cut each blank into a short rough size like the one I'm about to cut here. The overall length of the knife is 6 inches. 

 I’ll mark each blank on my stock and rough cut the length with the portaband saw. To allow for some extra material, I’ll cut them slightly oversized than what I need – say about 1/16” longer. 



My super-awesome DeWalt portaband saw. I’m using a 1/2”

 blade 24 TPI (teeth per inch). And it cuts great!

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Rough cut design. The inner curve can be challenging. To get the curve in the finger choil area, I used a method known as “connect-the-dots” where a series of straight cuts are made close to the finished profile to allow material to break off out of the way as the profile gets cut. This is helpful when changing to a smaller blade may be too time-consuming and only the rough design is required for working.

Cut several straight lines up to the curve close to each other. 

As the main cut into the curve comes up, each smaller piece is cut off, making it easier to get a curve with a larger saw blade.

 

These small bits may be just scrap but I’m wondering if I can use them as spacers towards possible future folder knife designs. We’ll see. 

The template so far. Because I’m using a lot of photos to describe this process, I’ll post the next series of steps in my process in the next article.

Next up, grinding the profile. 

The Amateur Crafter: Back at it!

Well it’s been a bit of a hiccup here and there but the shop is finally at a point where I can start my knifemaking. By that I mean focus on not just making a knife, but creating a process that I can repeat and/or adjust for other knives. I’m not going to make just one knife design. I want to be able to make all sorts of knives: custom fixed blades meant for skinning, reproduction copies of common kitchen knives meant for food prep work, and eventually custom folder knives meant for utility purposes only.

Now I need a design. I don’t intend to work without a design. I am not some steel whispering guru or artist with the ability to “sculpt” the work as I go. The steel does not “speak” to me. And I want something more than just an idea or a picture to go by; I want an actual design with measurements, overall sizes, etc.

The delay in the projects from unexpected hospital bills resulted in allowing me to focus on the process for designing a knife. And from the designs I’ve made so far, I have to say that I really enjoy the design aspect of knifemaking. No doubt that it’s a process seldom used nowadays due to available CAD software, but it’s still an enjoyable experience. 

From the photos, one can see that I’ve been doing a bit of drawing and sketching on some graph paper. I’ve seen a few custom knifemakers out there now that still use this method. I’m sure that the process can be improved through CAD software like AutoCAD or SolidWorks. But drawing it out made me think more about overall size, blade length, location of the ricasso line as well as which equipment or tool I had available to cut the shape. This brings me to the point where I should start with some terminology in knives.

The overall design of the knife is something most folks are probably familiar with. The example drawing I found online can at least point to some of the terms I’ll be using. The ricasso area refers to a section of the blade itself that is not ground, just shaped bar stock.

Common knife terms.

The grind is the section of the blade that has been shaped to a specific cross-section (cut-away section) for creating a particular type of cutting edge. The grind is very important to the purpose of the knife. Creating a grind such as a hollow grind (which is good for skinning knives) for a knife that may be intended for more utility purposes could be detrimental to the edge for its original purpose. Note the examples in the image. One may have to imagine cutting the knife blade exactly in half, then turning to see the cross-section of the blade. 

Some common knife grinds (cross sections). 

The tip can have an effect on the purpose of the knife as well. Take a look at some of the examples in the image. One may be very familiar with some of the shapes in the image. An example would be the clip-point style usually found on the well-known Bowie knives.

Knife Tips.

It should be noted here that I have no intention of making a weapon. I’ll explain. All knives are made with a specific purpose in mind and sometimes more than one purpose. This is understood by the grind (cut-away section) of the blade as well as the tip of the blade. For example, a utility knife meant for box-cutting would have a specific tip, maybe a sheep’s foot. And the grind might be the double-bevel. The bevel might not cut too deeply but it would help the knife retain a cutting edge longer because it’s fairly stout and the tip may have more rigidity from that design making it less likely to break. The overall description of such a knife indicates that it’s most likely a utility knife and it doesn’t have a lot of value as a defensive weapon.

A weapon such as a fixed blade with a spear point or a tanto point is much different than a utility knife like the one I described. The photo of a tanto knife can show how different the tip is from a sheep’s foot. Note also that the “tactical” knife has a cutting edge along the top of the blade as well – this is called a spear point. The tip of such a design obviously does not have the same strength for utility tasks as the sheep’s foot. And the grind may be something like a full-flat grind or a saber grind. This type of knife could have some use in utility but the tip indicates its intended use as a weapon; a weapon that can be easily inserted into something. Whether it’s for self-defense or possibly as an attack weapon, the so-called “single-purpose knives” primary use is as a weapon. The tip and grind design make it easier to use as a stabbing weapon rather than as a tool. 

The SOG Trident Tanto

Kramer Gutshot Fighter with a spear point tip. Note that the upper (spine) cutting edge does not go all the way back to the handle.

While it could be argued that a utility knife is still a knife or a weapon, its intended use is as a tool. In fact, the design of such a knife (utility) would make it a very poor weapon not at all suited for self-defense. The tip would make the blade much harder to stab into something, requiring much more force to be successful. The cutting edge isn’t meant to slice deeply but rather make shallow cuts and keep its edge for extended use. These (utility) knives are the designs I plan to make. In practice, I refuse to make a weapon but one could make the argument that a knife, regardless of its design, is still a weapon. But philosophically at least, when it comes to knives, I won’t make weapons in this shop I’ll make tools.

So to add a bit more of a delay, I wanted to be sure that I had a few safety items necessary for this shop and this includes personal safety gear. The respirator I have is a medium size and the filters are for particulates. Basically this means that the filters will not filter out vapors but rather dust particles. If I need to protect myself from harmful vapors (such as those resulting from consuming a bowl of lentils – LOL) then I would require not only different filters, but a different type of respirator, possibly a fully enclosed suit so that no vapors could get through the seal. As it is now, my mask doesn’t really seal that well against my face because I have a full beard. But that’s not a big concern because there won’t be a large break in the seal to allow huge amounts of dust particles inside the mask. 

My 3M half-face respirator with P100 flexi-filters and my face shield.

Additionally, I had to make sure I could mount a bucket to catch most of the particles from grinding. This is the stock removal method of knifemaking and it produces a lot of sparks especially from the lower carbon steels. This bucket will also provide me with a quench bowl to keep the blade material from overheating while I grind. Grinding produces a lot of heat and if the material heats up too much it will affect the properties of the steel. Having this bucket here allows me to quench a blade I’m working on as it heats up to keep it cool and continue working on it longer. 

It won’t catch all of the particles but it’ll help catch a lot of them. Plus, having water in this bucket makes a handy-dandy quenching pot.

And finally, I didn’t want to start all of this without my good friend Mr. Fire Extinguisher. Seriously though, this method of knifemaking will produce a lot of heat and a lot of sparks. Add into that anything that can burn for a fuel (such as saw dust produces from sanding, cutting or drilling any wood items) and you’ve now got yourself everything you need to start a fire. My shop is located in my basement and I very much would like to keep my house from catching on fire. Fire extinguishers can be purchased at nearly any hardware store and this particular model of mine is the dry chemical type. It’s good not only on typical wood, paper, or cloth type fires but it’s also good against electrical types of fires. This will help to protect any electrical equipment I have and I’ve got quite a lot setup in my shop and I’m about to get even more. 

Purchased from Home Depot.

Next up, the first design!