I have been interested in custom knife making for a while now and although I have no real interest in ever trying to make a ton of money off it I did want to learn to make them. After reading a few books and tutorials on the web I decided to take a class with Curtis Klingle at C-M Forge in College Station.
I had a blast and learned a ton so I thought I would post a little review in case anyone else might be interested. This is not a DIY because I don't know enough to teach anyone anything.
I’m not going to post the price or a link or anything because I don’t want this to be an advertisement. It is definitely a very strong recommendation, but my goal with this post is to show others who were like me that there is a good path to being able to make a knife without trying to figure it out on your own. If you want to look into it yourself just google C-M Forge.
We started Day 1 off right:
There were 3 of us in the class and they provided all the materials we needed and we started with a discussion on metallurgy, knife shapes, machine safety, etc.:
We were each given 2 different pieces of metal, one 1075 carbon steel and one 1095 (You may notice the 1075 has a hole drilled through it for identification purposes). More on the reasons for the two different steels later. :
We started up trueing our blanks up on an anvil and then moved to the surface grinder so we would have a perfectly flat piece of metal to start with. :
Next it was time to profile the basic shape of the knives. We would each be making 2 4-inch skinners. This is the grinder I would be using. It is a “Grinder in a box” modified to use step pulleys instead of a direct drive. I was glad to be using this particular machine since I just set one up just like it up at my house:
It only took a few minutes with the 60 grit belt and I had my basic shapes:
Next we sprayed the blanks down with some layout die so we could scribe our grind lines. :
Looks good to me. Just grind down to the line and not past it. Should be easy enough, right? I wish:
Everything started out so well:
Just find the flat of your grind and work it up to where you need it:
I’ll spare you the gory details and just say that I wound up having to re-profile one of my blades to a smaller design because I ground past my grind line. No big deal, and I actually think it was one of the most important things Curtis taught – how to fix the screw up you WILL make.
Eventually it all worked out and I was able to produce two decent looking blades. :
We finished day 1 by heat treating our blades. This is where we saw the reason for the different steels. We put the 1095 blades in the forge so they could be heated to the proper temperature and then rapidly quenched in oil, but the 1075 blades took a little more work. Since not everyone can start off with a high dollar forge we learned how to use a torch for a “Differential Heat Treat”. It was pretty cool and a great end to Day 1. :
Day 2 started with us wet grinding the blades that they had tempered for us overnight, trueing them for any slight movement that may have occurred during the heat treating, and starting the process of hand sanding and polishing.
Curtis does a finish all by hand, but we needed to save some time. This is my kind of hand sanding:
Next was time to pick out some mesquite handles. The line in the blade is from the differential heat treat and I really liked it. I was so impressed with it they showed me how to use ferric chloride to bring out the look:
After shaping the handles we scuffed up the blanks and glued the handles on. We use Loveless bolts for a more secure attachment (and for the look) and left them to dry overnight on day 2:
I couldn’t wait for day 3 so I could finish these up and see what they look like. We sanded the bolts down and got busy hand sanding the handles.
Day 3 was a busy half day as we worked with progressively finer grits to get exactly the look and feel which each of us preferred. Unfortunately no pics of that since I was a little busy so I’ll just cut to the final result:
I am really happy with the way the class turned out, and by golly I’m a knife maker. I’m not a very good one yet, but I can hack one out and that is a good start. I really hope that I can keep at it and get better as I already have a ton of ideas in my head. The class was awesome – not too long, not too short and not too crowded. Curtis was hands off enough to let you do your own thing, but was right there to get you back on track when you screwed up. I am way too busy to ever try to make a living doing this, but it was very interesting and almost therapeutic.
I had a blast and learned a ton so I thought I would post a little review in case anyone else might be interested. This is not a DIY because I don't know enough to teach anyone anything.
I’m not going to post the price or a link or anything because I don’t want this to be an advertisement. It is definitely a very strong recommendation, but my goal with this post is to show others who were like me that there is a good path to being able to make a knife without trying to figure it out on your own. If you want to look into it yourself just google C-M Forge.
We started Day 1 off right:
There were 3 of us in the class and they provided all the materials we needed and we started with a discussion on metallurgy, knife shapes, machine safety, etc.:
We were each given 2 different pieces of metal, one 1075 carbon steel and one 1095 (You may notice the 1075 has a hole drilled through it for identification purposes). More on the reasons for the two different steels later. :
We started up trueing our blanks up on an anvil and then moved to the surface grinder so we would have a perfectly flat piece of metal to start with. :
Next it was time to profile the basic shape of the knives. We would each be making 2 4-inch skinners. This is the grinder I would be using. It is a “Grinder in a box” modified to use step pulleys instead of a direct drive. I was glad to be using this particular machine since I just set one up just like it up at my house:
It only took a few minutes with the 60 grit belt and I had my basic shapes:
Next we sprayed the blanks down with some layout die so we could scribe our grind lines. :
Looks good to me. Just grind down to the line and not past it. Should be easy enough, right? I wish:
Everything started out so well:
Just find the flat of your grind and work it up to where you need it:
I’ll spare you the gory details and just say that I wound up having to re-profile one of my blades to a smaller design because I ground past my grind line. No big deal, and I actually think it was one of the most important things Curtis taught – how to fix the screw up you WILL make.
Eventually it all worked out and I was able to produce two decent looking blades. :
We finished day 1 by heat treating our blades. This is where we saw the reason for the different steels. We put the 1095 blades in the forge so they could be heated to the proper temperature and then rapidly quenched in oil, but the 1075 blades took a little more work. Since not everyone can start off with a high dollar forge we learned how to use a torch for a “Differential Heat Treat”. It was pretty cool and a great end to Day 1. :
Day 2 started with us wet grinding the blades that they had tempered for us overnight, trueing them for any slight movement that may have occurred during the heat treating, and starting the process of hand sanding and polishing.
Curtis does a finish all by hand, but we needed to save some time. This is my kind of hand sanding:
Next was time to pick out some mesquite handles. The line in the blade is from the differential heat treat and I really liked it. I was so impressed with it they showed me how to use ferric chloride to bring out the look:
After shaping the handles we scuffed up the blanks and glued the handles on. We use Loveless bolts for a more secure attachment (and for the look) and left them to dry overnight on day 2:
I couldn’t wait for day 3 so I could finish these up and see what they look like. We sanded the bolts down and got busy hand sanding the handles.
Day 3 was a busy half day as we worked with progressively finer grits to get exactly the look and feel which each of us preferred. Unfortunately no pics of that since I was a little busy so I’ll just cut to the final result:
I am really happy with the way the class turned out, and by golly I’m a knife maker. I’m not a very good one yet, but I can hack one out and that is a good start. I really hope that I can keep at it and get better as I already have a ton of ideas in my head. The class was awesome – not too long, not too short and not too crowded. Curtis was hands off enough to let you do your own thing, but was right there to get you back on track when you screwed up. I am way too busy to ever try to make a living doing this, but it was very interesting and almost therapeutic.
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