Damascus steel knife assistance

[mmayo]

A friend asked me to help him make a knife for his father. I've never tried a knife before and of course I said sure. I presented him with all of the wood that was big enough to make wide knife scales and he selected bocote. I think I did most of the work but it was a fun project to do with someone else. I could see that perhaps I was a bit more anal than he was about finishing so we stopped and here's the result. It feels great in my hand.

I think I need to buy a folder knife kit since it was fun.

 

[randyrls]

WOW! the blade on that is nice!

 

[Charlie_W]

That is really sharp looking!...literally too!:biggrin:

 

[BSea]

Is that a kit knife? If so, where did you get it?

 

[mmayo]

The "kit" was just the blade. I had the wood and some brass rod and epoxy. We pretty much used most sanding tools in my shop. I'll check with him for his vendor.

 

[mmayo]

The Damascus steel knife blank was purchased from Amazon for about $40.

 

[BSea]

The Damascus steel knife blank was purchased from Amazon for about $40.

Thanks!

 

[camb]

I deal with premium knife supply

 

[Donovan]

I have ordered a lot of blades from Alabama Damascus

Donovan

 

[mmayo]

I made another one for a friend

I purchased the blade from eBay and my friend selected deep red bloodwood. Here are the results.

I finished with walnut oil using MM pads through the stack. A little pens plus finished the effort. It feels amazing to me. It used a Worksharp knife sharpener to make it scarey sharp.

 

[D.Oliver]

It feels amazing to me.

It looks amazing to me. :biggrin:

 

[Skie_M]

Looks gorgeous ..... Still have plans laying about for building a forge ..... but buying a blade and making the knife would be doable with my current equipment ... I'm going to have to look into this some more!

 

[mmayo]

A drill motor, bit, pins, clamps and the saw you already have are needed at start. I used an oscillating spindle sander, but a belt sander would be great. I used HF 5 minute epoxy and clamped thoroughly to be sure there were no gaps between the scales and the blade.

Great tactile rewards as you move from 180-400 grit and then migrate to MM and oil. It was a nice change from pens and plugs.

 

[liljohn1368]

That is really nice mark....

 

[mmayo]

A new knife for my nephew in Minnesota. It is Damascus steel with redwood burl knife scales.

 

[JD Combs Sr]

Some great looking knives Mark. Just my opinion but if you are going to continue to make knives I would look into marking them with "your" maker's mark. I have made two, "Beauty" and the "Beast" and one of the first things I saw in my research on how to make a knife was that their value is much greater when they have a maker's mark on them. Most marks are on the blade but since you are using wooden handles you could start with a simple branding iron type logo applicator. You might want to visit and/or join some of the online knife forums. There is a lot of howto info for etching marks and for making and treating blades on the forums. A couple that I have join are "knifedogs dot com" and "bladeforums dot com".

In any case keep them coming, they look great.

 

[mmayo]

Thanks for your generous advice. The scarey thing is that this has proven to be fun for me and I will have to sell some to pay for my enjoyment. I will take your advice to heart. There is a knife blade vendor that offers such etching or laser engraving as you buy their blanks.

I include one of these nameplates on all of my tackle boxes

Thanks again for the good advice.

 

[Neil]

If anyone wants Damascus (American made) check out Alabama Damascus, he sells all kinds of knife blades, and Damascus steel, the owner is Lacy Smith , I have bought a few of his knife blades , beautiful