Knife making for Beginners

Welcome to my blog pages, where I plan to post a series of articles on knife making, drawing on the skills I have gained over the last few years of engaging with this amazing craft, and whilst I am still learning everyday, I hope to give you some valuable insights and help you gain some skills so you yourself can have a go too! It’s a wonderful art to have a go at, and I’m sure just about every man I know fancies himself to be able to forge a sword in the event of societal collapse. (jokes). In any case, I`ll be posting links to supplies, recommending steels and tools, and will try to document processes with photos wherever possible, as well as linking to other sites and resources from the web. Please subscribe, if you havent done so already. Also, don’t forget to have a look at my shop!

Knowledge. I cant stress this enough! knowledge is king, so research, research, research. Buy books, such as Dr Larrin Thomas`s book on heat treatment, books on knife making, and any other books you feel will be helpful. You should also get on Youtube and have a look around at knife making videos, there’s some great makers out there, though obviously bear in mind that some may share bad info, so always look in a variety of places when trying to learn new skills. The other great place to go is facebook groups like UK knife makers where there’s a great crowd of like minded folk that are always willing to offer advise to anyone that asks!

Steel. This should be pretty obvious, this is a vast subject, and you really should spend some time researching blade steels, mostly on the basis of “what am I able to heat treat?”, there’s no point spending £150 on steel that you cant heat treat yourself, although it is of course possible to send out to a pro! I recommend you start with a simple high carbon steel that’s quite easy to heat treat such as 1070, 1075, 1080, 1084 and so on. These simple steels (known loosely as the ten series) have a fairly wide austenisation temp (the temperature you quench them at) so can be heated in a gas forge (or even solid fuel, with some care) with OK results, though I`d still recommend a thermocouple in the forge to keep an eye on the real temp in there!