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The Newbies Arena Are you new to knife making? Here is all the help you will need.

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  #61  
Old 09-04-2016, 12:18 PM
jimmontg jimmontg is offline
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My son is a NP, Nurse practitioner.

Makes almost as much as a Doctor with his bonuses. I'd be looking at about $25-30 a knife in a 100 batch and that is 440C with the cryo. As being in a saltwater environment 440C is the most corrosion resistant and also the least expensive stainless. After that it will be up to me for handles and sheaths. What gave me the idea for the shape of the shucker was a bubble in a skinner I was making from D2 that appeared when I was doing the final hand sanding on it. A little pit appeared and became a .025 cavity right smack in the middle of my hollow grind. Talk about make me mad. But the false edge on the top became part of the shucker and I shortened up the hollow grind and sold it to a friend who was going to the coast. He came back and added a couple of ideas and that's how the shucker came to be.

That's interesting about the YouTube videos. I get lots of requests from just my regular Facebook page, from friend"s friends and such. I carry my smalls around too. Some are kit knives of superior quality and lots of folks who would never spend $150+ on a knife are happy to pay $75 for a nice knife with a nice handle and sheath. I think I mentioned, my bottom line on hardness is RC58 and I have scratchers to tell me if that is what they are. There is a company down here that makes kit knives and they are not that high for the smalls. So I buy from them and kitchen knives I get from TKS as I don't want to grind them with my equipment. No I don't put my name on a kit knife.
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  #62  
Old 09-04-2016, 02:50 PM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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jim... this deal with the 100 knives how would you get them just profiled and HT or bevels too? another thing you mentioned "smalls" before ...what do you mean? just a small knife? or like REALLY small I have seen a bunch of pics of people with REALLY small knives I mean the whole thing handle and blade will easily fit in the palm of your hand to me they aren't even functional they are so small is that what you mean?? or just a smaller sized knife?
One more thing .. ok not for a big bowie or anything like that and not including kitchen knives just for every day general use , EDC kinda blades what would the thinnest stock you would think about using for that kinda carry knife?
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  #63  
Old 09-04-2016, 02:52 PM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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that last question is really for anyone reading just curious about opinions on thickness that people other than me have
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  #64  
Old 09-04-2016, 04:09 PM
jimmontg jimmontg is offline
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Dave, I'd get a finished blank to 400 grit.

Satin finish with grey Scotch Brite belt if I think it needs it. I have some other belts and can go finer. Just a rub down with 500 grit diamond compound shines a knife up very quickly.


These knives are made of D2 and the small one has a 4" handle with a cutting edge that is 3", but the blade is about 2" long. My smalls are in that range 2" to 4" blades and 3" to 5" handles rarely have guards. The filet is .080 or 2mm thick and the small skinner is 3mm or .120 thick. The filet went to my son and I sold the little skinner to the first guy I showed it to with a plain sheath and he lowballed me and ended buying it because I said no to $50. Sold it for $65 and plain sheath. I sold another knife that day that had a 2 1/2" blade with a 3 1/2" handle and no sheath, but had it in a cheap eyeglass case and the guy said that was fine, it was an $11 kit knife (I get them on sale) with cocobolo handle, $55. I almost always use exotic woods btw.

Understand I tell my customers where the kit knife comes from. I do not pretend that I made it as that would be the equivalent of fraud and as my kids will tell you I always told them no stealing or cheating and let your yes mean yes and your no mean no, because if your word is no good then..... You get the picture.

As for thickness of my knives, it just depends, the oyster shucker will be 5/32 or .156 thick, may go to 3/16 if it's the same or cheaper in price. I almost never make a knife over 3/16 as that would be pretty hard to break. I did make an Arkansas toothpick out of 1/4 inch 1084 as it had a double grind and it was about .220 thick when done and a little on the softer side from what I usually do. My smalls are almost always 1/8 inch because it doesn't need to be thicker and they are always usefully functional. Like the little skinner in the pic. I make a small skinner with a thick handle that is only 2 1/2 inches long, the blade is over 3". Why do I make it like that, because legally it is not a push dagger, but can be held in the hand like that. I sell a lot of those. Again a kit knife, called Little Bear Skinner at TKS if you want to look at it, but I don't pay their price.

So I usually make small knives out of 1/8", when I get to the 4" blades and a possible skinner/fighter then I go thicker. But what the knife is for has a lot to do with it. A survival knife I might baton with is going to be thicker, but I recommend a high quality hatchet for chopping wood, because to be as useful a knife would have to be pretty big. For EDC I would use 1/8" stainless or O1.

Last edited by jimmontg; 09-04-2016 at 04:22 PM.
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  #65  
Old 09-05-2016, 08:36 AM
dtec1 dtec1 is offline
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ok yeh I am just curious because I usually get .103-.113 also .140 - .156 and .172 - .188 I only use the .103-.113 for small knives because once you grind the decarb it comes with and from the HT it ends up being around .1 but the more and more I have been using it the more and more I am starting to think it is much too thin. I think I am going to start using the .140-.156 more and use it to replace most of the stuff I have been using the thinner stuff for. unless the knife is really small
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  #66  
Old 09-06-2016, 03:47 PM
jimmontg jimmontg is offline
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Wouldn't worry about it.

A 3" blade is perfectly fine with being .100 thick Dave and if a skinner actually preferable. This thick little knives fad is not the best thing. Unless you are going to pry with it a knife under 3 1/2 inches doesn't need to be 5/32 thick unless it's used like my oyster shucker or is double edged. I hate oysters btw and eat a raw one? Maybe, if I was starving, but I doubt it even then. I stopped eating boogers before kindergarten.
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  #67  
Old 09-07-2016, 09:29 AM
WNC Goater WNC Goater is offline
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re. Knife thickness

I've been using 1/8" (.125") .110, even have some .95 damascus. It's all plenty thick for EDC knives. I realize the desire to make things well, but I think we in our desire to turn out as good a product as we can, sometimes tend to "over engineer". As noted, some knives for their designed purpose actually work better if they are thinner. A filet knife being a good example. I just see no use for thick heavy blades.
Before I started building knives I gravitated toward thinner and smaller fixed blades. I field dressed, skinned, and partially dismantled a whitetail deer last year with a 2 1/4" blade. Got a friend in Idaho I hunt with carries an Old Timer pocket knife. He's field dressed many deer and elk over the years with that one blade. Just don't need heavy blades IMO.

A knife is a tool. A prybar is a tool. A knife is not a prybar. Pliers are not hammers, nor do we expect them to be. Don't know why we expect knives to be prybars, tomahawks, hammers, screw####### and axes and think if they don't perform as such, they are somehow inferior.

Anyway, my 2 cents worth of "knife philosophy".


edit to add: My definition of an EDC or general purpose knife would likely not exceed 8" in total length with about a 4" max blade length. That would be on the larger end with about 6.5 - 7" total length with about a 3-3.5" blade being ideal to me. I'm not talking "big" knives here, but again, I gravitate toward smaller more practical knives.


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Last edited by WNC Goater; 09-07-2016 at 09:37 AM.
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