[whittlinguy]

I just completed 2 new knives, a detail knife with a walnut handle and a chip carving knife with a curly maple handle. I followed the step by step instructions from Rick's web page. Both were made out of an old straight razor and some scrap wood I had laying around. The chip carving knife started out as a roughout knife but I forgot to temper the blade and the end broke off so I reshaped it and tempered the blade The detail knife blade was fine after I learned how to temper the blade.

I think I'll leave the knife making to the professionals but they were fun to try. Next time I'll buy the blades pre-made and add my own handle designs.

Thanks to Rick for his great instructions.

[Plain_Ol_Ed]

I like that tiger maple handle.
A LOT!!!!!

[whittlinguy]

Thanks for the reply. Curly maple looks nice but WHAT A BEAR TO CUT!! My poor ol' scroll saw was sweating up a storm.

[flcracker]

Very Nice knives

[Plain_Ol_Ed]

One word of warning .... Making knives can become an addiction!

[Gear Dog]

So what did you grind them down with?
I got bit by the straight razor shaving bug and picked up a few off of ebay. The wife flipped when she found out I entended on restoring them to shave and not just collect them. So I now have 3 candidates to attempt to make my own special knives with. I also have a nce piece of poplar that I was going to use as the scales that I can now use for the blade handle.

[Plain_Ol_Ed]

Don't know what the other folks use, but I use a belt sander.

[Just Carving]

I've tried the belt sander, a hand held grinder--clamped in the vise, and lately, I've been using my Rotozip tool with the flexible cable attachment. I'll use the grinder to get rid of most of the metal. Then I use an 1/8" rotary saw arbor with a 1" diameter cutoff wheel to fine tune the edge, and make any notches, or curves in the blade. I have much better control and I can use it at any angle. And because it's high speed, I don't need to use any pressure whatsoever. It's more a case of not holding the wheel in one place for too long.

Once I've got the blade shaped up to what I want, and I'm happy with the bevel, then I go to the scary sharp method--starting with 220, 400, 800 and then 1000 to leave somewhat of a polished surface. If I'm ambitious, I'll finish polish the blade with 2000. Then it's just carve in some real hard wood like rock maple or oak, and strop. I do that to "break" in the edge, and to find any bad spots. If I can carve oak or maple, then it usually works great on basswood, butternut, aspen and so on.

Bob L

[Gear Dog]

Hmm I have a belt sander, dremmel and a roto zip. Looks like there is nothing stopping me.

[Just Carving]

Nope--just practice on a piece of scrap to get the hang of using the flex cable. I think I got the Rotozip flex cable from Lowes. I bought the arbor and a package of cutoff wheels at Sears. Works fine so far.

Bob L