Here’s my project for the 2012 Christmas Exchange. This is the first knife I’ve ever made. I had a great time working on it and I learned quite a bit. Thanks to many people on this site, I was able to find all the information I needed to get started.
I began with an edger blade from the hardware store. I considered a saw blade, but I wanted the knife to have a fairly stout blade that would withstand some heavy use and batoning if necessary. The steel seemed pretty hard as I could barely scratch it with a file. I printed a pattern of the blade profile I wanted and traced the outline with pencil, which was fairly easy to see and didn’t rub off during the process; a big plus. At this point, I used (several) Dremel cutoff wheels to rough out the blade. Lots of neat sparks fly everywhere! I know all of you know this, but please use safety glasses if you do this. I spend a fair amount of time removing metal from people’s eyes and nobody seems to enjoy it
. I took this step really slow because I didn’t want to alter the temper. After cutting for several seconds, I would either move to another spot or dip the blade in water. The metal never got above lukewarm. The bevel and edge were put on mostly with a file. After that was done, I used several grits of sandpaper with an electric palm sander. I ended with 400 grit wet paper, which left a near-mirror shine.
At this point, I decided to use a browning solution on the metal for an old-timey look. I’ve used this on muzzleloader parts in the past and really liked how they turned out. One thing I found is that humidity is really important in this process. I did several treatments in my basement (relative humidity=31%) and got hardly any results. I sanded all the finish off to start again. This time, I put the blade in front of a humidifier and that worked much better. This finish can be left on for a few hours between treatments up to 24 hours before it’s wiped off. The longer you wait, the more “antiqued” the finish - most treatments I did were in the 4-8 hour range. If you want a more uniform browning, the blade is rinsed in hot water and excess oxidation is rubbed off using coarse cloth (old denim works great) every 3 hours.
For the scales, I glued some maple veneer to walnut for a little contrast. At the hardware store, I got a piece of cut off wire for under a dollar and used the copper for pins. I used some 5 minute epoxy between the scales and metal for good measure. I’m not sure I’d do this again. Even though I was really careful, it was messy and I had to do a lot of hand sanding to clean up the areas it got on the wood. I did coat the blade with paste wax where I wasn’t epoxying to keep any from sticking to that area.
After that, I just sanded and sprayed polyurethane over the scales and rubbed on some paste wax to finish it off. Now all I need is to make a leather sheath, and it’ll be all ready to send off! Thanks for looking.
