My first two knives

[Gdpolk]

I've just started dabbling into knife making and recently finished up my first two knives.  What are your thoughts or suggestions on room for improvements?  I've already got several ideas for places to improve on my next one.  This has been a lot of fun learning new tooling and processes.  It's also been cool to create some tools that can be used for years to come by myself and loved ones.

First knife done was a hunter/skinner in Elmax with a 3" blade length.  The flats were hand sanded to 600 grit, then given a tumbled finish in order to make it brighter and improve corrosion resistance. The flat grind was taken down to 0.010" thick behind the secondary bevel edge and is left at a 220 grit that's been burnished with a scotchbrite pad; I did this to hopefully hide some of the wear and tear on the surface of the blade from use. The handle was given beveled fronts to help with pinch grips and then taken to 1000 grit and then buffed slowly with white rouge.  This one is for me:
     


My second knife is also in Elmax but with ivory g10 liners over Thuya burl handles with mosaic pins and a stainless lanyard tube.  This one has a 4.25" blade and is made to be a general purpose outdoors knife.  I have a little bit of very light staining on the G10 from sanding in the finer grits.  I believe its metal dust that has been transferred into the tiny gaps/weave of the G10.  It's not bad, but not perfect either so I'll have to learn to do these liners a little more cleanly. This one is going to my father for Christmas.
 

[Lin Rhea]

They look pretty good to me.
I like the flat ground blade much better than the Scandinavian grind but it's still a very nice job for your first two. Good job.

[Gdpolk]

Thank you for the compliments. If you have any tips large or small for me, I am all ears. I'm enjoying the learning and creative process a ton. I don't expect to ever make it a business because then it'll become work. But as a hobby this has been a heck of a lot of fun.

[gudspelr]

Wow. Pretty great looking for just starting out. I'm also with Lin on the grind of the first vs the second, but I know that's just a preference thing. The handle finish looks really nice and it appears your grinding is pretty darned good, too. I've also had the same struggle with getting that metal dust into lighter handle material (blonde colored woods) and it can be frustrating. I don't know of a "cure" so to speak...let me know if you find one   . Thanks for posting these up, I look forward to getting to see more.

Jeremy

[Gdpolk]

I like the hunter more.  That's a very special design to me.  I went through about 20-30 mid to high end hunting knives and never found one that I thought was just perfect for me.  So, when I traded off my compound bows to a knife maker I had him make my ideal hunter/skinner.  I made a list of each and every miniscule detail that I liked and disliked about all my knives.  Then I drew up some plans for all my likes with no dislikes and voila I had my hunting knife design.  Mark Hill made it for me and I've used it for years without a single hesitation.  So, when I got into knife-making I knew that my small game hunting knife just had to be my first attempt.  I'm mighty happy with how it turned out too.  

My dad asked for a general purpose outdoors knife from my first run and since I had bought Elmax for my hunting knife, I needed to use the 1/10" Elmax for his too.  Being that he wanted a general purpose outdoors knife and that steel was fairly thin I thought going the traditional woodlore route would be best to get him in on my first run with a thinner blade stock.  I didn't want to flat grind a general use blade too thin and have problems with chipping or what not on a blade that may see heavier use than just slicing flesh off of bones.

My 3rd/4th are going to be a matched pair for one of my best friends and his son and then after that I hope to do a knife for myself and another family member in 3/16 3V that is about a 4.25-4.5" blade with a distal taper, high flat grind, and the handle contours of dad's woodlore.  That should, in my opinion, make for one truly fantastic general woodsbumming knife.

[gudspelr]

Very cool. Bet it was super satisfying to be able to bring to life a knife that's near and dear to you already. And I'll bet your dad loves his knife. Now I'm really looking forward to the next ones   .

Jeremy

[KSCATTRAPR]

Wow, great job for your first couple knives. I like them both!

[Gdpolk]

Originally posted by gudspelr:
Very cool. Bet it was super satisfying to be able to bring to life a knife that's near and dear to you already. And I'll bet your dad loves his knife. Now I'm really looking forward to the next ones    .

Jeremy

The hunter was one more step closer to a dream come true for me.  Now, I just need to go clean a bunch of animals with it.    

[Gdpolk]

Originally posted by KSCATTRAPR:
Wow, great job for your first couple knives. I like them both!

Thank you for the compliments.

[92Fspc4]

Beautiful.  Cant wait to see your 10'th.

[Gdpolk]

Originally posted by 92Fspc4:
Beautiful.  Cant wait to see your 10'th.

Thank you for the compliments.  I've learned with each of these and hope to continue learning.  It's been a fun experience.  It's nice to have a change of pace from the daily grind and be able to do something productive.

[Bodork]

Those are incredible for you firsts! Takes most of us years to turn out knives that nice!

[Gdpolk]

Originally posted by Bodork:
Those are incredible for you firsts! Takes most of us years to turn out knives that nice!

Thanks for the encouragement. Any tips for how to refine my craft some? I have a couple ideas but am very, very eager to learn all I can. Doing it on a super small scale hobbyist level gives me the freedom to worry less about needing to pay the bills with it and more time to just go slow, have fun, and make the best that I can make. No tips are too small.

[Gdpolk]

Here's the sheath I finished up for dads knife. Mine is still waiting on proper leather. Dads has a cold forged, twisted brass d-ring that I made, antiqued brass snaps on the removable dangler loop, a two piece welt to allow for a drain hole that's superglued in and stitched over with a saddle stitch, and a two tone natural/black finish. I think it came out fairly nice and it compliments the knife well...
     
     

[Gdpolk]

I took some time off around the holidays but got back on it today.  My third should be coming up shortly and I suspect it'll be even better than the first two.    

[just_a_hunter]

Those knives and leather are pretty awesome all the way around. Keep up the great work.

Todd

[Bladepeek]

I've had the same problem with metal dust in light colored, porous material. It really messed up the appearance of an antler butt cap I put on a knife a long time ago.

This idea certainly isn't a "cure all", but at least it helped some. I avoid all fine sanding until nearly to the final surface. Then, I saturate the surface with super glue (similar to stabilizing, but without the benefit of a vacuum) and then let it set up hard - at least over night. This fills the pores without changing the color and at least helps keep the fine metal dust from getting down into the surface. No heat allowed in the sanding at this point. I try to do no power sanding except at VERY low speed and no power buffing. If I go through the coating, just repeat the super glue.

My theory is that it costs very little, can't hurt and MAY help.