People will tell you about all kinds of ways to build a knife, but the method I was taught over 20 years ago is still the one I use today.
My wife and I lived in Atlanta for several years back then. I had become intrigued with learning about traditional methods of doing things like woodworking. I was trying to find sources for some of the old tools when I happened on a roadside antique store in the Georgia mountains one weekend. By accident I started talking with an older gentleman there.
I learned that he still had several old tools that he still used. He also mentioned that he made knives from old hand saws. Jumping on that, we talked a little longer and he invited me back the next weekend to watch him build a knife.
The following weekend I got up early and made the 60-mile trip to his house. He was waiting for me when I got there.
After a few polite words he motioned for me to follow him. We walked to back of his house where he had a small workshop. Entering, I expected to see scads of tools. It was pretty bare. In the center of the room stood a giant workbench made of timbers. The only things on it were a cold chisel, a sledgehammer and an old rusty hand saw blade.
He was a quiet man and didn't even speak before he went to work drawing the outline of a knife on the steel with a little piece of soapstone. I could hardly wait. I was about to witness step one of how to build a knife.
Satisfied with his knife outline, he reached for his tools. Carefully placing the end of his chisel on the line he'd just drawn, the old man whacked it with the big hammer. Ka-Bam! It startled me.
He moved on by continuing to place the chisel just ahead of where he just had been. I could soon see he was actually cutting a very neat and clean line through the steel.
It finally dawned on me why this craftsman was using a chisel and sledge to cut out the blank. The saw steel was tempered for toughness I knew. Had he used a torch to cut it out the metal would have lost temper.
The simplicity of it amazed me. This quiet and patient man just kept making little one-inch cuts with a chisel and hammer and in a few minutes time had cut a perfect knife blank out of tough high-carbon steel. What an ingenious way to build a knife, I thought to myself.
During the next hour he dressed up the roughed-out blank, made two wooden handle slabs and attached them with homemade copper rivets, then finally ground a fine edge on the knife.
For final inspection he walked outside with the knife. He turned it in all directions for me to see. I couldn't see a flaw anywhere. The awe must have shown on my face. The old man was almost chuckling at me.
From a rusted piece of steel to finished knife in just over an hour. I could hardly believe it.
From a piece of discarded steel to a beautiful and useful tool. What a demonstration of craftsmanship this man had just given me. I had been shown how to build a knife and I'm still making them today this same way.
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