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I Forge Iron

Steel Knife


Cody Fagley

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I am just about ready to make a knife for a friend. It is a 10" Rod of Steel with a relatively high ammount of carbon. I know how I want to do the blade, but does anyone have any advice on how to make the handle? it is around 1" dia. I don't even know how to start with the handle, normally I just make the blade.

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Forge the tang to shape, normalize, then start the blade.

If you don't know how to forge the tang to shape perhaps you should put the project aside for a while and learn to forge first!

Start by laying out the proposed blade on some thin cardboard (cereal box works well), work out lengths and widths for elements of the blade design. When you are happy transfer it to thin sheetmetal and cut it out as your "Try-It" (handy to mound neat the anvil on a magnet)

Remember that the fattest/largest cross section will be right where the blade to the tang transitions and tapering the tang distally will help lighten the blade and make it easier to mount a guard on it.


With 1" high carbon it's going to be a job forging it down---do you have a friend that can hold it while you use a sledgehammer on it?---Remember that knife steels CANNOT be worked too cold or too hot---keep it in the forging zone!

A project this size may warrent a trial with a piece of similar sized coil spring.

May I commend to your attention "The Complete Bladesmith" by James Hrisoulas?

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