Advice And Help For Complete Novice

[boots]

I'm looking to begin knife-making, have got a basic idea but would welcome any advice on getting the right equipment together. The wife is going to give me extra pocket money so I can afford a decent start. The more equipment the better then I don't have to leave my shed for a while! This is my first message posting, I look forward to hearing from anyone out there with good advice, preferably about knives not wives!

[narsil]

Assuming you want to start with stock removal rather than forging I would sugest the following as being useful.

For the metal bits:

- Set of engineers files,
- Hacksaw and cobalt blades
-Wet and dry paper in a range of grits from 300 to 1200
-Angle grinder
- Drill

For woodwork

- Coping saw
- Surform file
- Sandpaper ina range of grits
-sanding block

Those are pretty much the basic essentials and you should be able to do a fair bit with them. There are a lot of other potential things you can get but its probably best to start with the basics and work out what you need for youself when you've had a little more experience.

Cromwell Tools and Axminster Tools are good places to start looking for kit and materials. Cromwell sells O1 tool steel which is probably a good choice to start with and Axminster sells a range of hardwoods which make good handle materials.

Even if you have a reasonable ammount to spend I reccomend that you make your first couple of knives with simple hand tools then you will get a better idea of what kit will be really useful to you.

Good luck and welcome to the forum

[narsil]

You'll need to think about heat treating as well, this can be quite a complex subject but in a nutshell you'll need a means to get the blade really hot for hardening, quench it and then a way to temper it. Tempering can be done in a domestic oven, for hardening you'll need either a forge or a gas torch.

Or you could get someone else to do the ht for you.

[imagedude]

First thing you need is a couple of good books then your safety equipment.

[Isshogai]

Narsil - I can get roofing propane torches which produce upwards of 1400 degrees C - would this be ok for Heat treating? I presume you'd have to rig a way of heating the torch evenly?.....

[Colin KC]

Yup, you need a chamber for the capturing of the heat & refractory (brick, fibre or castable)

A simple one brick forge is a good start, & you can bind two or more bricks together for a larger chamber (experiment is the way to go, along with asking the one brick guys here)

[narsil]

http://www.britishblades.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3821&highlight=brick+forge

an example of a one brick forge, courtesy of Jon Baron

An oven thermometer is useful for tempering, and it might not be a bad idea to get a small toaster oven from argos or somewhere to avoid the wrath of SWMBO.

There are quite a few threads on heat treating in the forum archives, a search for heat treating or tempering should get you started.