Greetings from a newbie in Cape Town, South Africa

RickA

RickA

Well-Known Member
Hi everyone,

I'm a newbie to knifemaking, having gotten involved about 4 months ago. I first got interested in custom knives many years ago when I was still competing in Practical Pistol shooting. Almost every gun show I ever visited had an area dedicated to custom knives and knifemakers, and I used to look at them and think, "WOW those knives are beautiful, one day I'm going to do that"

After many years of other hobbies, About 5 months ago, I decided it was time to give it a try, and I am loving every minute of it.

So far I have finished one knife, I made it following the methods described in the "Absolute Cheapskate way to start making knives" tutorial, although I couldn't find the 5160 steel and ended up buying a piece of N690 bar stock from Bohler (440c), I also decided to add a brass guard to my knife. The handles are African Ironwood. Rather than drilling and cutting with a hacksaw, I used a small angle grinder with a cutoff disk to cut the blank out, and then filed it into shape. I used draw filing to file the blade bevels, finishing them with progressively finer water paper on a sanding stick (220, 320, 400, 600, 800 and 1000 grit)

After I had the blade profiled,the bevels filed, the guard cut and filed to fit, drilled and pinned. I took the blade to Bohler for hardening in a vacuum furnace, with nitrogen quench, after which I tempered in my oven 2x 1hour at 190 deg C.

I had almost perfect bevels / plunge lines filed on the blade, but managed to mess up one side a bit when sharpening the blade with my Lansky. I used a mini buffing wheel in my hand drill (clamped to the bench to polish the blade.

Looking over one of the Work In Progress postings in the forum I am now disappointed that I didn't take photos of the various stages in construction, as it would have been nice to look back at in future.

I have a few more blanks which I designed, cut out and filed to shape, however have not started filing bevels etc yet as I am currently busy building a KMG grinder.

I have already learned a lot from reading the forums, thanks to everyone who has contributed advice and tutorials. Hopefully I will be in a position to do the same in future.

I have attached a few photos of my first knife below, Let me know what you think
RAKnife01-5.jpgRAKnife01-7.jpgRAKnife01-9.jpgRAKnife01-4.jpg
RA-Knife01-1.jpgRAKnife01-10.jpg
RAKnife01-11.jpg

Cheers for now
Rick :biggrin:
 
Rick,
Goeie dag en welkom by KnifeDogs.
Your first knife is very well done and looks to be a sensible user.
They get better as you go and are able to upgrade your tools, but this is a great start.
My only suggestion would be to leave a space for your makers mark and be sure to mark and keep your first knife.
You should find immense help here as these are the freindliest people in the knife world.

Regards,
Steve
 
Rick
Welcometo the dogs
Your first looks great!!! keep them coming.
Lets see your grinder when your done building.
 
Hi Guys

Thanks for the kind words, much appreciated, i'm glad you like my first attempt. The sheath shown is a test sheath - I put one together quickly from some old leather scraps I had lying around, I just wanted to revise my old leatherwork skills, I made quite a few custom holsters back when I was still shooting, although that was about 13 years ago.

I will definitely upload pics of the grinder, I will take some in progress shots and upload them. So far it's going well, and i'm learning a lot while doing it.

Goeie Dag Steve, angenaame kennis! Waar het jy Afrikaans geleer?. I am working with some ideas for a makers mark. will definitely be marking the knife, and no I will not sell it!

Bye for now
Rick
 
Hallo Rick en welkom by KD. I am also new to knife making and are busy with 5 new ones at the moment. My KMG grinder is nearly complete, also build my own.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top