Welcome to about the easiest most helpful site you might find if you are getting into knife making, Long ago information about how to start was carefully guarded by those folks in the know.

A few hints might help you get more out of this sight in a shorter period of time. What is your experience as far as working metal and what tools do you have at hand? Forged or stock removal or a bit of both,,What have you done?

Keep in mind that there have been questions asked at most levels for many years on this site. Might help if you can at least look through the questions asked recently and see if they provide anything useful.

You will see the term sticky refered to many times. Start here http://www.iforgeiron.com/forum/143-knife-making-class-100-series/  go over the classes about knives. Folks have spent a lot of time to record those notes and if you can find your answer there it will be more complete than anyone is likely to reply as a short answer to a question you post in this forum.

If you have looked through what I have noted above and still are stuck. post a pic and or a good description of the problem including a general location of where you live. We do not care about streets and exacts, mid state etc is fine. Many times someone may be in your area and offer you some one on one help. It is tough to get a good start from just reading material or imagining what to do next.

Pay close attention to the reading material suggested often on here. Flipping open a shop copy is way better than posing a question on here and seeing when it is answered and by whom. Any one can ask and anyone can answer. You will see as time goes on what that means. Have fun, We enjoy watching new follks develop.

Dont get upset if we dont jump in to answer your previously simple questions in the forum or chat as we get asked the same things over and over again, If you feel your time is too important that you cant read older posts for yourself, dont get upset if we feel our time is also of value. We do want to help, but at times we all get upset that people ignore what has already been written here about the subject.

Please read what has been posted before posting questions. The stickys are detailed, often asked topics. Plus there are PINNED topics that have been tagged to stay at the top for easy location, and of course many pages of questions and really good answers. After reading, then post questions and you should get help. A general question of " What steel should I use for this" isnt going to get as many good detailed answers as asking, " I have 1084 I want to use for a kitchen knife, Is there anything I need to know before using this steel" will get you very detailed answers that can make your project turn out better, and tells the rest of us you have tried to learn something on your own.

Rich and Steve I just found this post and more y'all have wrote thank you both for everything y'all do and the hard work y'all do to help newbies like me it does not go unnoticed

are you able to sell knives on here? and if so what thread

are you able to sell knives on here? and if so what thread

Read the Terms of Service for the forum, and talk to the site Owner, Glenn Conner about advertizing rates.

i would like to start but there are so many different steels for so many different jobs. is there a metal that is easy to heat treat while also being fairly cheap? thanks

Welcome aboard Art glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many Iforge folk live within visiting distance.

Have you at least read THIS thread? What you need to do to get started was repeated a couple times right here. I'm afraid the world class bladesmiths who frequent the forum are about tired of hand feeding kids who can't be bothered to read the thousands of pages of OUTSTANDING bladesmithing lore already archived here in the section so named.

However I WILL answer your first really REALLY poor question but just this once. No there isn't a steel with those properties.

Frosty The Lucky.

Define 'easy' and 'fairly cheap.' 1084 is a steel I see recommended most for beginners but as Frosty said, it's all covered here all you have to do is look.

Take a coil spring with few miles on it and cut it down two or 3 places giving you a bunch of "(" pieces all of the same alloy to practice forging and heat treating on.  If you were in the USA I would suggest checking out a place that does raising or lowering as they will sometimes take a brand new vehicle and trash the current springs on it for ones associated with the raising oe lowering.  Old springs may have micro cracking in them.

fair warning, If you post photo of a section of beat up  flat bar with an edge cut into one side,  dont get too upset if you are told its not really a knife or sword, If you cant see the difference between a knife and scrap then you are not ready to make and sell knives. (we had this happen before)

so i was making my first knife and learned a great lesson if your going to eat lunch don't leave the knife in the fire it will not be usable when you come back

A lot of us have switched to propane so we can set a consistent temperature and minimize the number of blades burned up due to a few moments of inattention.  It's still not good to leave blades in the forge above critical temperature for extended periods of time, but at least they aren't ruined that way.

true but for the moment that's a little more pricey than i'd like.

Made my first knife in1993. Made my wife a kitchen knife out of a saw blade; apple wood handle. She still uses it all the time. I made me a coal forge from a trailer brake drum, exhaust pipe from an old Ford, and a hair dryer for the blower. Works great for my little operation. I make all kinds of blades for family an friends. 

Thank you for the info and for the warm welcome.

I guess you could call me a new knifemaker. I made my first knife 30+ years ago when I was 14. My dad made knives and he showed me how to do it.  I made a few simple knives out of old saw blades but they were for use as tools and met their fate long ago. 3 years ago I got a small cheap lathe and learned to make bowls. I made hundreds of them. I've only sold around 20 of them. Last summer I was watching Forged in Fire and got to wondering if I could still make knives.  My dad did stock removal. He would grind a knife to perfection. I'm not so good at it because I've had strokes take away my ability to be precise with my hands. And my short term memory is useless too. But hey it wouldn't be fun if it weren't hard. So far I made a forge from a donut tire rim, an exhaust pipe from an Audi, some pieces of cinder blocks and cement with an old hair blower my wife donated. It works ok but it's a tad too small. I've forged 7 knives and a drawknife so far. Remembering what to do next is  difficult at times. I've had to go to a smaller hammer because I can't really do fine control with my hands. A lot of it is no different than if I had my eyes shut while doing it. It's easier with a smaller hammer. 

 

But I think I'm getting better at it. Finally had someone want to buy a knife from me but I have no idea what to charge. My dad charged $300 back in 1985 for his knives. I looked up what an equal price would be given inflation. I kept getting around $1,000 as a current equivalent.  I've got 18 hours in this latest knife. I know I can't even hope to get that much for a knife. Not even with copper added to it.  What do you guys charge?  I have a picture of most of what I've made so far.I'd say all of them were more practice than anything else.  This latest one I'm working on seems far better than the others, Even though it's handle is too small.  

Hey Hondo, it's all practice.  I started by charging 150 for mine, though my chef's knife was 225.  It all comes down to what someone is willing to pay.  What kind of steel are you using?  How's the finish?  Is it comfortable to use?  All those questions come into play but if you at least try to recover costs for fuel and materials you can keep the hobby going. 

Keep it up, challenges keep us going more than anything else. 

 

I made my first knife from the school scissors they issued us when we could finally use the ones that were pointed on the ends. That was in second grade. 70 years ago.

Of course, the steel was unworthy of being called a knife, but I filed off the rivet at the pivot, made two "knives" from the two pieces. I cold hammered them into  arcs, pounded the circular handles into rope twists, used sandpaper to shine them up, kept one for years and sold the other one to Larry Icenogle for a quarter.

After that, kids were lining up to have me make blades from their scissors, rubbing the rivets on the school front steps to take the scissors apart, but soon the school principle shut down the operation, prohibiting anybody trashing their scissors to make knives.

My first experience with government inhibiting commerce. I have made knives all my adult life, sales have been decent, but I have had to do other work to survive quite nicely. Not good to limit yourself. Make stuff and sell it. Stuff people want. Knives are great, but not the only things you can make and have fun ....Joe