Page 251 - The Lost Ways

To start, use an old file for your steel. The knife shown below was made out of an old flat
file I had sitting around. The first step is to draw out the shape of the blade on the knife.
In this case, I’m making a small drop-point knife. The finished blade will be 3/4" wide and
about 4" long.

This profile is then made on a grinder by removing all the material outside the drawn
lines. Be careful to grind so that the edges are 90 degrees to the face of the blade.

You will need to wear insulated leather gloves (such as welding gloves) or hold the knife
blank with pliers to keep from burning your fingers on the hot metal.

Once the profile is shaped to your satisfaction, it’s time to move on to putting the taper
on the blade. This is most easily accomplished on the belt sander using a block to hold the

knife blank and to maintain the angle.

In the next photo, I’ve attached the knife to the block with double-sided masking tape.
The taper on the block is five degrees and is cut on my table saw.

As you can see from the photo, it is fairly easy to maintain a clean line on the blade if you

use long strokes across the belt while grinding. I took this blade down to a thickness of
about 1/32" at the edge before abandoning the belt sander and finishing the edge on a
whetstone.

If you can keep the blade cool while grinding, you may not have to reharden and temper
it. Dipping it in cool water between grinding strokes can help with this. However, if your
blade heats up to red even once, it will have lost its temper. This is, of course, more likely

250