Zero

My goal for my first day was to simply practice cutting a rough knife shape out of a sheet of steel and potentially start grinding it down. I haven't done much work with cutting steel with power tools, so I fully expected this to start slow and end with a potentially mangled vaguely knife-like object.

Equipment

I started out today with basically none of the tools that I might need to start making a knife. The only thing I already owned that could use was a pair of gloves that I had previously only used in the garden, so I took a trip down to the hardware store.

I had a pretty brief shopping list:

• 1 angle grinder
• 2 grinding wheels (metal grinding + metal cutting)
• 1 belt sander (preferably vertical)
• 2 C-clamps
• 1 bench vise
• 1 sheet of steel (around 1/8" - 1/4")

The alloy of the steel doesn't matter since this is just for practice, but when I decide to make my first real blade I'll probably have to order a decent knife alloy unless I can find a place to buy it locally.

After a brief survey of the table belt sanders at Home Depot, I was pretty disappointed in the results and decided not to buy a belt sander... that will probably require some more research. The only bench vise I could find was also over $70, and I didn't think that I would need that for the day so I skipped that as well. I was, however, able to pick up a decent angle grinder (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BM6BMI), a few C-clamps, and two different sheets of steel of varying thickness.



I should have realized this before I started, but I learned later that grinding away at a sheet of steel is *loud*. I made a second trip back to the hardware store to pick up some hearing protection as well as a cheap respirator in the spirit of safety. My wife also donated some glasses from her Chemistry lab class back in college.

Grinding the blade

To figure out the shape of the blade, I was completely unoriginal and took one of our chef's knives from the kitchen and traced around it onto a piece of paper. From there, I cut the knife shape out of the paper and used it plus a Sharpie to draw an outline onto a steel sheet. From there, I clamped the metal down to my work bench and began grinding away using the metal cutting wheel.



Once I had most of the excess metal off, I switched to the metal grinding wheel to bring the edges in closer to the drawn shape. I learned a few important things during this whole process.

Important thing one is to make sure that the surface you're clamping to is flat. The edge of my work bench apparently has some divots in it and they caused the blade to warp as I clamped down on it. It's somewhat visible in this picture of the (eventual) blade edge.



Important thing two is that an angle grinder is like a sledgehammer in sculpting. It's useful to get rid of the big pieces, but you aren't going to be able to use it for the fine details.



Important thing three is that I apparently do not have a steady hand. Hopefully that will come with time.

That's all for now. I've got the rough blade shape ground out, now I need to research and buy (or build) a decent belt sander so I can fine tune the shape of the blade and grind out the cutting edge.

First post

So I made a blog. This is partly to track my progress as I delve into the world of knife making, but also partly to prove to my wife that writing a blog is easy (the hardest part is just starting). She is an amazing crafter and has always talked about starting a blog but then she never does, so maybe this will convince her to get started.

I have zero experience in making knives, but I want to learn. The knowledge I've got now is scraped together over the past couple of weeks from YouTube videos and half a decade old posts on various defunct forums. Hopefully the posts to come can be useful for anyone else who is also wanting to begin this hobby.