# How I make knives



## Bluepine38 (Dec 14, 2009)

*How I make knives*

Having entered the Spoontaneus collaboration/class I needed some carving knives. Since my hands are
rather large and I have arthritis in my thumb joints, I needed special knives made. To make knives you
need good steel, saw blades have good steel, so lets see what I have.










A short chunk of bandsaw blade 8" by 4' and some 23" table saw blades, no these are not from my
shop, my oldest daughter Mari is a saw filer at Pyramid Lumber and these are worn out cast offs.
First I cut off strips with an abrasive cut off blade in my grinder, then I rough shape them with the
same blade. Then to the belt and disc sander to further refine the shape and put a rough edge on
the blade. I found that I can not drill through the bandsaw blade, so I have to heat it up and punch
my holes I then used juniper wood and 3/16 brass rod to form the handles and rivets. All this was
epoxied together and rough shaped on the grinder, then hand finished to fit my hand.



















These two knives are my basic carving knives. I needed something to carve spoon bowls, so I decided
to try making some curved blades for cutting the bowls.



















You can see how the knives fit my hand, I use my fingers and palms to do most of the gripping. These
knives work great for shallow curved cuts and scraping surfaces smooth, but do not make it easy to 
do deeper cuts. I decided I needed a curved gouge. This was formed by heating and beating the
strap of metal into half pipe using a piece of 1/2" black pipe to form the curve and then rolling one
half of the blade into a circle and using epoxy to secure into a hole in a piece of sugar maple for a 
handle. Here is a picture of the gouge and a man in the spoon made with the carving knives.



















These knives were sharpened on a 3m scotchbrite wheel and the stropping wheel shown here.










I can not get a shaving edge on the knives yet, but give me another year or two. I am in no
hurry. Thank you for looking. Here is a picture of the gouge in action, it works similar to the old
spoon bits of yesterday.


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## SASmith (Mar 22, 2010)

Bluepine38 said:


> *How I make knives*
> 
> Having entered the Spoontaneus collaboration/class I needed some carving knives. Since my hands are
> rather large and I have arthritis in my thumb joints, I needed special knives made. To make knives you
> ...


Great blog Gus. I will have to give this a try.
Thanks for sharing.


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## Maveric777 (Dec 23, 2009)

Bluepine38 said:


> *How I make knives*
> 
> Having entered the Spoontaneus collaboration/class I needed some carving knives. Since my hands are
> rather large and I have arthritis in my thumb joints, I needed special knives made. To make knives you
> ...


It is so crazy seeing this today…. I been asking around lately trying to find someone local who makes blades. My plan was trying to make my own chip carving set and a nice collection of marking knifes…. This wonderful blog just made me an extremely happy future knife maker….lol

Thank you so much for sharing… This makes my day!


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## MShort (Jan 15, 2009)

Bluepine38 said:


> *How I make knives*
> 
> Having entered the Spoontaneus collaboration/class I needed some carving knives. Since my hands are
> rather large and I have arthritis in my thumb joints, I needed special knives made. To make knives you
> ...


Thanks for posting. This is very interesting.


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## helluvawreck (Jul 21, 2010)

Bluepine38 said:


> *How I make knives*
> 
> Having entered the Spoontaneus collaboration/class I needed some carving knives. Since my hands are
> rather large and I have arthritis in my thumb joints, I needed special knives made. To make knives you
> ...


This is a great post and I enjoyed it very much.


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## sedcokid (Jul 19, 2008)

Bluepine38 said:


> *How I make knives*
> 
> Having entered the Spoontaneus collaboration/class I needed some carving knives. Since my hands are
> rather large and I have arthritis in my thumb joints, I needed special knives made. To make knives you
> ...


I am not a carver but I enjoyed your blog very much!

Thanks for sharing


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## WayneC (Mar 8, 2007)

Bluepine38 said:


> *How I make knives*
> 
> Having entered the Spoontaneus collaboration/class I needed some carving knives. Since my hands are
> rather large and I have arthritis in my thumb joints, I needed special knives made. To make knives you
> ...


Thanks for the info on making your tools.


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## stefang (Apr 9, 2009)

Bluepine38 said:


> *How I make knives*
> 
> Having entered the Spoontaneus collaboration/class I needed some carving knives. Since my hands are
> rather large and I have arthritis in my thumb joints, I needed special knives made. To make knives you
> ...


Great work. I especially liked the curved blade ones for hollowing spoons. I have made some chip carving knives too. They were made from hacksaw blades which work very well too.


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## mochoa (Oct 9, 2009)

Bluepine38 said:


> *How I make knives*
> 
> Having entered the Spoontaneus collaboration/class I needed some carving knives. Since my hands are
> rather large and I have arthritis in my thumb joints, I needed special knives made. To make knives you
> ...


Nice, good job, shop made tools are the best .


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## smithy (Jan 10, 2012)

Bluepine38 said:


> *How I make knives*
> 
> Having entered the Spoontaneus collaboration/class I needed some carving knives. Since my hands are
> rather large and I have arthritis in my thumb joints, I needed special knives made. To make knives you
> ...


like it!


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## woodmaker (Jan 12, 2011)

Bluepine38 said:


> *How I make knives*
> 
> Having entered the Spoontaneus collaboration/class I needed some carving knives. Since my hands are
> rather large and I have arthritis in my thumb joints, I needed special knives made. To make knives you
> ...


Gus, those are cool! I bought a set of small carving tools from Wood River, I think they're too small. I need bigger tools to get those nice curves and circles.
I to have arthritis in my hands, so gripping handles a long time is not easy.


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## JoeinGa (Nov 26, 2012)

Bluepine38 said:


> *How I make knives*
> 
> Having entered the Spoontaneus collaboration/class I needed some carving knives. Since my hands are
> rather large and I have arthritis in my thumb joints, I needed special knives made. To make knives you
> ...


Very cool. Might hafta give a try at making a few of these. ALl I gotta do now is get one of my daughters a job as a saw filer at a lumber company and I'm IN!

Thanks for sharing.


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## rick1122 (Sep 30, 2013)

Bluepine38 said:


> *How I make knives*
> 
> Having entered the Spoontaneus collaboration/class I needed some carving knives. Since my hands are
> rather large and I have arthritis in my thumb joints, I needed special knives made. To make knives you
> ...


Very cool got to make some marking knives myself.Thank's for sharing GUS.


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