Tom's Knife Making Experience

[Theme Song] I have my friend, Tom in the shop today and Tom started messing with knife making, and we'll define that a little bit for you in a second. Ah, not that long ago. So I thought it'd be cool for Tom to share his experience. Um, some you know, I'm pretty wrapped up in this whole knife making thing too. So I thought it'd be cool for Tom to talk about his experience, how he got here, what he does, and ah, so Tom welcome to the shop. Your welcome. Thanks for taking the time to do this. Yes, sure. No Problem. And ah, when did this start for you? How, how long ago? About, about a year ago. And it was because of you, as much as anything. You were into knife making. And ah, at that time I decided Jesus, ah, maybe I should make a hunting knife I think was the first thing. And I made the hunting knife and it was ah, relatively successful, but not great. And then I decided ah, some kitchen knives would be an order. Because we just don't have, I didn't have good blades on our kitchen knives. So I ah, got a set ah, of blades, and put the knifes together, steak knives and ah, the normal ones that you have in the kitchen, chef's knife, that sort of thing. And they turned out pretty good. And um, they're very nice because you can keep a good edge on them. Then I decided after that, I do quite a bit of bird hunting out in North Dakota. And ah, we have contacts out there that um, we've um, haunted on their farms for many years. And every year I try to bring a different Make them a little gift. A gift. Yes, every year I try to bring something different out there. And ah, so this year I decided I'd make some hunting knives up. And so that's essentially what we have right here. These are various woods. Most of you ah, woodworkers out there. We'll have ah, this kind of stuff right in your shop. All the tools that you probably need to ah, make these knives. This is really pretty simple. Well, let's talk about, to be transparent for the people that are watching. Cause I run into this um, knife making neither you nor I are forging blades. No. Right? I mean, you haven't, are you doing that when I'm not looking or that hasn't happened? No, no, you're absolutely right. So the steel that's here you're getting from a supplier. Yes. And it's, and it looks... Many on the internet, many suppliers of blades. Um, it looks something like this? Yeah. And you're adding the handles, which are called? Scales. Yeah. So, um, and in broad strokes you can deal with two different kinds of knives. Um, what Tom's got here are knives that have scale handles put on. An alternative blank is one that looks like this. This is called the Tang of the knife. And that results in something that looks like this. Which you've also done, but you've done. You're more into the scale thing. Well I, I've done this, ah, this type here, but I found that it's much easier to do this type, with the scales. So this, this is a little, little more advanced. When you're this involves soldering. With silver solder, yeah, there's some stuff going on there. So this is a great point to key in on. So for people who want to do their very first knife your advice is a scale style. A scale style. And ah, thing that you can do that um, is, is very easy to make the knives really look neat and sharp, is to dress up your sheets or your cases here. Ah, you can dye them different colors. You can see a bit of a color difference here. And then you can put what a amounts to, it looks like um, a saddle varnish. Ah, it's, it's actually the material that you use for this is um, used for saddles basically. And it conditions that leather. And um, you can also imprint various designs. In this case, ah, this is ah, an Indian head. And ah, I believe a feather over on one like this. And ah, you, you can, but there's all kinds of different ah, designs that you can ah, put on the a sheath. And it's just what the, this is what it is. Oh, just the leather stamp. Yes. So let's get the, on the woodworking side of this whole thing. You have the blank. And then um, when you're foreman the scale, Yup, at any specialized tools, you had to add in your shop to make that happen? Well no, I didn't have to add anything, but I do use a drum sander to flatten this. Okay. I use... To get, to get skinny pieces because you need, Yes. get skinny. And oscillating Spindle Sander is indispensable for doing the ah, curves and so forth. Okay. And of course you need a Band Saw to rough out the ah, shape of the handle. Okay. Um, everything gets drilled for these rivets? Handheld Drill or Drill Press? I use a Drill Press for everything. That seems like a smart move. Um, and then at the end of the day, or just the rivets in here? Is there a glue in here? or what's actually holding the scales in place? The scale is glued to one side and then drilled and then glued to the other side and drilled again. And these are actually what are called Corby's Okay. Fasteners that are in here. And I use those almost all the time. But many times you, you can use just a rod or a bar in here. Doesn't have to be the Corby. But the Corby's work well, because they, you can tighten them down, and nothing's ever going to turn those. Tied together. And then just grind them off. And ah, two-party proxy, is the glue in there? Yes, um hum. Yeah. Um, so big picture, if you were talking to people and saying, you shouldn't do this. You, you might want to try this. You should do this because... like, so what's your favorite part, out of adding this your, I mean, you've already built cabinets and furniture and you do some lay turning your, your previous gift for these guys was a Pepper Mill. Yeah. So you've done a lot of woodworking, now you're really into this. So what's your favorite part of messing with these? My favorite part of messing with these knifes, I guess is that to tell you the truth, when I get toward the, when it's almost finished, I love sharpening the knife. Okay. I really do. Okay. And getting a really great edge on it. And I like ah, a sharp knife. I think a sharp knife is a safe knife. Yep, that's true. All right. Well, that's a good overview and, and ah, I think it's cool that at the end of the day, like we've talked about, you do not have to add a lot of super specialized stuff to your shop No. to make this happen. Um, what's the most you have spent on a knife blank? Maybe on your kitchen knives? Were those the most expensive ones? Um, not really. I mean, I, I think probably fifteen to twenty dollars at the very most Okay. right now. But if you're going to get into the ah, Damascus or something like that, Yeah, this is about a hundred dollar knife blank, Yeah. Here. And I, I intend to ah, invest a little bit more in ah, some ah, knife blanks here. Because I am going to make some up for some gifts for ah, family members. Okay. My sons. So it's, you know, so the point I was trying to get to there is you can spend six bucks Yes on a piece of steel. You can spend two hundred bucks on a piece of steel. So you don't have to jump in with both feet and spend all sorts of dough to get going in this. In fact, you can find kits, and Google is your friend for this. You can find kits that will come with scales that are already drilled and shaped. And all you're going to do is glue them on and put the rivets in and shape and finish the shaping. Um, so at an introductory level or do you want to start with a kit? You can make it very simple, and then kind of graduate as you go. I'm, I'm to a point where I want to learn to forge the steel. I want to learn to make a piece of Damascus, and make the blades on my own. Um. but there's all sorts of different levels of this. So, Yes. Cool. Well, good. Well, thanks for taking the time to show us your stuff. They're coming out great. And I love the work you're doing on the sheaths. You can really see what you start with, to what you end up with. That's a really nice touch to personalize those. Yes. I ah, it did ah, visit a very experienced knife maker in Sioux falls. And he gave me a lot of tips about doing this sort of thing. And he does forge his own blades. That's cool. Yeah, it's pretty neat. It really is. But you're getting into really some high buck equipment ah, to do that sort of thing. Very good. All right, Tom. Thanks a bunch. Beautiful work. Thank you. Thank you.