My first stab at knife making...

[Jonathan]

caveat: I bought the blade....

I have been a closet knife collector since I was a kid. A few years ago I met a guy(Mike) who runs a missionary in Nicaragua, teaching young men to blacksmith. He was interested in what I do(frame building) and I thought what he did was pretty cool too. A part of his Blacksmithing school is knife making and I was able to get one of his knives about a year ago. I was pretty impressed with the hand forged and hammered blade. I also got to see a knife he was making for the Christian Motorcycling Association that used motorcycle chain, spoke and worn denim for handle materials. About a week ago I thought I'd dip my toe into the water and play with the upcycled blue jean idea. below is how it went down.








At this point with Denim Fibre made I thought I'd test out my handle material on a Ti Paragon bottle opener I had in the shop.


With the bottle opener having gone smoothly I started on the blade.











This was a fun project that used a few framebuilding skills. At some point in the shaping I decided to smooth out the coffin shape the blade came with in favor of a more organic shape. It feels good in the hand but I don't see myself carrying a 8" Bowie blade very often. I'd like to cut and shape my own blank at to have heat treated at some point but I need to get back to welding. I don't see this ever being more than a handful of knives done sporadically.

[Giff Holmquist]

Very nice! What sort of adhesive did you use to create the denim "micarta"?

[Jonathan]

Very nice! What sort of adhesive did you use to create the denim "micarta"?

fibreglas resin on this batch. The color retention was spot on but next go around I'd be tempted to use West Systems epoxy. what you see is wet sanded to 1000 grit.

[justinf]

That's gorgeous, Jon. I really dug the process series.

[Jonathan]

That's gorgeous, Jon. I really dug the process series.

Thanks man. I really tried to quit after that first blade. I've got too much going on in my life for a hobby, But I had another urge, so my kid and I started making a knife out of a used up file I had laying around. I've heard file steel makes a good blade. Getting the annealing and re-hardening down was cool. We haven't made handles yet but it will happen this week.