Thread: Blades are blades, right?

So my interest in making razors is spilling over into knifemaking now. This is my third knife and the first I've made on my new grinder. It's a thank-you present for my father-in-law, who built the grinder for me.

It's carbon steel, flat ground with a tapered tang. The scales are neoprene rubber. I heat-treated it myself. I still have some final touches to do, like finish sanding the scales, cleaning some epoxy residue off the blade, making a sheath, and of course sharpening.

This is by far the best one yet. My finish has a long way to go; there are some stray scratches on the blade. The transition from the blade to the handle isn't consistent on both sides, but it's not too bad. (This was actually supposed to be hollow ground, but I screwed it up and ended up flat grinding it instead. I've become familiar with the old joke, "Knifemakers don't make mistakes; they just make smaller knives.")

In some ways I think razors are easier, actually. Putting a handle on a knife is more difficult than making a set of scales in my book.

There's a lot more info out there about knifemaking, so learning to do this stuff is helping me figure out how what I need to learn on the razor side.

Thanks very much to Mike Blue and Joe Chandler, who have both spent a lot of time with me, answering questions and giving me pointers. You guys rock!

Josh

Sweet looking knife, good job.
Ted

Looks like a neat drop-point hunter.

She looks real good, Josh. Good thing you haven't seen some of my early work. Never used neoprene, though...do the pins bite into your hand when you grip it? Seems like they would.

Nice one Josh. I'm about to get started on that myself. I've yet to order the steel though.

Originally Posted by Joe Chandler

She looks real good, Josh. Good thing you haven't seen some of my early work. Never used neoprene, though...do the pins bite into your hand when you grip it? Seems like they would.

Joe, the neoprene is a pretty hard rubber, so it doesn't give much under your grip. It's not spongy. You do have to be careful when sanding the handle, because you can easily sand away the material between the pins, leaving little high spots where the pins are. Ask me how I know. I'm sure you've run into that on other materials.

My father-in-law works in a machine shop and outdoors, so I thought the neoprene might give a good grip with cold hands. It's not a bad material to work with, but the color is a little different than I was hoping for. I was looking for jet black and ended up with a slate gray.

I did say this was my third knife, not my third blade. I've got a bunch of half-ground junk and hammer-mangled "forged" blades lying around. More to come, I'm sure.

Josh

Josh,

Let me know when you when you want to start selling these things or when the blade making is down, razors or knives. I could send some business your way

And no more false modesty

Josh,

Once again nice work. Keep it up! Great looking knife...

Thanks, guys. I'm enjoying this immensely.

Ilija, in leiu of further false modesty, I will just post more pictures of my trashed blades. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Josh