Learning to Make Knives

  Forging hot steel is unlike some would think it to be before committing to the act. I imagined it to be slightly different myself. Personally I figured it to be more difficult, not to mislead you the reader, it is tough work even with a power hammer to assist the work load of hand hammering. 

The first knife

     The steel when heated to forging or welding temperature looks to be soft, and technically it is softer than it’s original state, but not soft like pounding on playdough. It takes a heavy hammer blow to move the steel, and several maybe even hundreds of those same blows to forge out a knife blade or billet of steel to make a knife. 

chainsaw knives. top mine, three twist & fold. Bottom, Travis’ three fold

       Although I only forged two knives, one chainsaw chain billet, and one cable knife, in the 7 days making knives with my cousin Travis Swezey, I will say the forging process is the most rewarding. To take a bundle of chainsaw chains, heated, twisted, folded and then to cut and shape a blade out of that bundle of chains is amazing. To do that in a day is even more of an excitement. I for one, am the sort that has a limit in patience and when I have the ability to see what I have made, finished in the day-through hard work-it puts a massive smile on my face.

Third and best knife I made; fathers day gift for my Dad.

         The first day was more of a family reunion than knife making. The weeks we were there half of what we actual did was make knives; the other half was talk. Stories and stories, that Travis had tons of, lots of him and his father and the slaughter truck they ran. What made the whole experience of learning so much easier was that I was learning and working along side family. Even though I had not seen Travis since I was in diapers, and then I wouldn’t remember him anyway, it felt just like any other family encounter.

Left to right: CTS XHP stainless steel, 1095 high carbon, micarta handles on first two. Far right knife used as template.

 There is three basic grinds to a knife. Flat grind is kind of like the standard just a straight grind from ricasso to tip at an angle from the back of the blade to the blade edge. This is done on a flat belt. Then you have the hollow grind, which is the primary grind used on the knives we made. Take a look at a straight razor, they are a very extreme hollow grind. You make a hollow grind on a wheel, and depending on the wheel size you will have a deep hollowed out grind or a much shallower one that almost looks like a flat grind. Then you have a convex grind which is what a hatch or axe usual has for an edge, basically opposite of the hollow grind.

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