The Stock Removal Method of KnifeMaking

The Stock Removal Method of Knifemaking is one of the best ways to make a quality knife. What I mean by one of the best ways is that it is inexpensive and don't need a lot of tools to do it. So, it is one of the best ways for a beginner who doesn't have a lot of stuff but wants to make a quality knife.

In this tutorial I will take you step by step through the whole process of knife making and show you lots of pictures along the way as I make an actual knife. I will also give you tips and recommendations on what tools you can use, what steel to use and different ways you can do this.

I do have this whole tutorial in a pair of youtube videos where I show you the whole process of making this knife as I make it: Part 1 begins right here: Youtube video How to make a knife

Here is a look at the exact knife that I make in this tutorial:

Can you make a knife using the method I have here? You sure can! Here is one made by John Graham. It looks great. He has since completed it. And my thanks go to him for sending in the pic.

Want to give this tutorial a try? You can do it and you can have some fun with it too! Come up with your own knife design! This is exactly what 4xdblack did! Here is a picture of his knife. It is almost ready for the handle. My thanks to 4xdblack for sending in the pic!

Step One Choosing The Steel

There are a lot of different types of steels and the distinctions revolve around a few basic additions variations. The most important part of the definition of steel is how much carbon has been added to iron to make it a certain grade of steel. The addition of carbon makes it much harder and the more carbon you add the harder the steel will be. But there is a point where the steel is so hard that it is brittle. And we don't want a brittle knife.

So here are a few quick guidelines for choosing steel:

If you are purchasing steel you can go with something in the medium to high carbon steel range. Common steels for knife making include 01 steel, W2 steel, L6 steel, or D2 Steel. I have more information about these steels here and there are also links to good knife steel that you can buy through amazon.com .

The picture to the left shows two pieces of 01 Steel that I purchased through amazon.com. They are two inches wide, eighteen inches long and one bar is 1/8 inch thick and the other is 3/16 inch thick.

This is some terrific steel for making a knife.

Step Two Designing your Knife

Before you start making your knife you have to know what you are going to make! This means drawing it out on paper and figuring out the size, handle, shape, bolsters, pins, ricasso, size of the tang and more. This all has to be decided upon before hand. Then you draw yourself a pattern on a piece of paper in the exact size of the whole knife

This picture shows three knife patterns that I drew out on paper. For this tutorial I am going to use the pattern in the center. (If you want this exact sheet with the three patterns you can download it here) If you have trouble printing this picture to size your printer may be fitting it to the page which makes it smaller. I have oriented this picture vertically so it will print easier. Try this one to see if it works better: download it here

Cut out the pattern and glue it to the piece of steel. I used a spray adhesive. And notice how I have placed the knife in a way that takes advantage of the edges. This way there will be less cutting to do. A good portion of the top of the knife and the butt of the knife are against the edge.

Step Three: Removing the Stock

Now it's time to do something called profiling the blade. This is where we remove all the metal that is not the knife! Use any tools that you can use. The best process that works for me is I used a hacksaw to cut away as much of the steel as I could. But a hacksaw only cuts in straight lines so we can't do any of the curved parts.

But by making multiple cuts we can still get rid of a lot of the steel.

Once I did all the hacksawing I could do I moved on to using a bench grinder. This works terrific and you can do a lot of the curved work here. Get it down to almost exactly the shape of the blade - but not quite. And don't try to force any curves that you can't quite get with the grinder. We will finish that off with a file.

I also used a one inch belt sander to continue working the shape of the blade.

Now we do the final profiling of the blade using a Mill File. Clamp it in a vise and get the profile exactly to it's final shape. And smooth out all the rough egdges around the whole knife.

And there we go. The profile of the knife is completed.

Okay, let's move on to the next part of the knife making tutorial where we drill the holes for the handle and file in the bevel

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