Christmas Project by Jasper Covey ('18)

Christmas present: handmade high carbon steel kitchen knife. My mom had asked me for a good knife for christmas and I thought what better way to do that than to make one from scratch. I began by making the propane forge, then used the forge I had made to smith the steel into a knife shape. After it was the correct shape, I took to the belt sander, which I used to get a better finish and to remove the oxide layer made during the forging process. I did a bit of shaping and polishing, and then I drilled two holes for brass pins through the handle. I cut some walnut to be the handle scales, and drilled them to fit onto the blade snuggly. After having glue together the blade, scales, and pins, I took to the belt sander again in order to get the handle down to size and to the shape I wanted. Once finished, I put the knife in my vice to do the final hand sanding of the piece. Unfortunately the blade broke during the hand sanding process because I evidently had not normalized the steel enough and it was still brittle. I then took the blade back to the sander to get an even surface finish and to re-shape the cracked blade. I did some polishing, and the final product is the last picture shown below. I still have to finish the last step, which is to put some linseed oil on the handle to seal the wood.

Forced air propane forge, with high carbon steel stock being heated

High carbon steel stock after heat

Knife after initial forging, grinding, drilling, and sanding

Knife after mounting of red-wood scales and brass pins, before final sanding

Knife after final sanding up to 400 grit sandpaper. The length is shorter because during sanding, the tip broke because the blade was brittle--I did not normalize the blade enough.