What is the fascination of knivemaking?

[Frosty]

It's hard to beat using a tool you made with your own hands.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

I was once digging a firepit with a pattern welded sceax and when someone remonstrated with me for doing so; I could tell them "I can fix anything that happens to it---I *MADE* it!"

[Alaskan Bladesmith]

As a fulltime bladesmith now that started making blades about 20 years ago as a kid, I can say that it has to be in your blood to love doing it. For me, the difference between blacksmithing and bladesmithing is that I can make the steel become "alive" through the heat treating process. It is a make it or break it(sometimes literally) moment when I pour life into a piece of steel. So unlike a blacksmith that puts character into steel, a bladesmith puts character and then breaths life into his steel. As to why we dont really make tools, well, I think man has always been fascinated with the "power" of the edged blade. And let me say, Im not slamming blacksmiths, they can shape steel in their own way like I never do. And lastly, a bladesmith is not just forging steel, he machines it, heat treats, works with brass, precious metals, hardwoods and leather too. I find the complexity of a beautiful, functional, tool to be intriguing.

[SHC]

I intend to make some knives and hopefully get decent  at it. I carry a KABAR on my hip everywhere I go except schools, airports, courthouses, etc. technically illegal length here, BUT there’s a clause in our law that states something about demonstrable need for work and/or recreation, and cops generally don’t mess with me. Most in my area know me, those that don’t know of me, and the ones I met while traveling who don’t know anything about me tend to like me cause I’m pretty chill. I’m a Marine infantry vet and military police. There’s a vibe that others in uniforms and badges pick up on.

A KABAR is all the knife I need.

 

 What got me interested in blacksmithing was my first job when I got out of the Corps, working in a mill making steel flanges, AND the ironworks I’d see around old homes. Many these days are made by machines, but some older or custom home fixtures you can tell are handmade. 
 

Watching that gigantic press forging out 14” weld neck flanges from yellow hot 80# chunks of steel just really fascinated xxx xxxx xxx xx me. 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Mod30
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[Dewnmoutain]

honestly...i find knife making to be much much easier than the other types of forging. When you really look at it, your just taking a piece of steel, and hammering it to certain thickness with a certain width with a certain length. then you can grind it down to a set shape, throw an edge on it and youre done! Anything beyond that is a layers and layers of window dressing. 

Due to my PTSD, i have a heck of a time trying to figure out how to make punches, chisels, slits, drifts, and tongs. i somehow always manage to screw it up and in turn have my slit holes and punched holes come out all jacked up. Or make two left handed tongs that dont line up and i have to reheat it again and modify it to fit the other, and do a crap ton of filing to make it all line up properly (It's especially annoying when you come across that person who picks up a hammer and within 2 hours is able to make a working pair of tongs with 3 heats.) 

[ThomasPowers]

So no trouble with heat treating, decarburization, temperature range when forging, (I was very upset the first time I cottage cheesed a high alloy steel.), and all the other "window dressing to make a good blade?

[Dewnmoutain]

i made those mistakes with the slits, drifts, punches, and chisels, and all my other forging endeavors. still got angry when i made a sparkler out of a strut coil, but i figured it was cheaper to learn that way than with expensive knife alloys. I didnt make an attempt at knife making until i had spent a year learning how to manage the fire, hammer control, and so on.

[ThomasPowers]

Did it right! 

I got to talking while cranking today and after 41 years forging managed to burn a bit on the blade I was doing .  Luckily it was early in the game and I was able to flip sides for the edge.  Power chain billet and VERY stiff under the hammer. I was working it with a 4# hammer  and earlier a friend was striking with a 8# sledge.

I won't sell it as it's a mistake but I'll have a heavy duty camp knife to use myself and abuse it as well!  A friend had welded a handle on the billet and it had lasted a long time, in fact until I hot cut it off and forge welded the imperfections of that end into a nice and solid tang.

[Frazer]

Dewmountain, practice, practice practice. IMHO being a better all around smith will make you a better knifemaker (most of the time).

While bladesmithing isn't "much much easier" I would say it is a focused set of skills. I would say the same thing if all you made was axes or bottle openers or hooks or anything else. While there are many variations of each and varying complexities in designs etc. I think there is some benefit to being able to make all of them if asked or needed.

I would also agree that with some patience you can certainly turn a rough forged blade into a functional and/or beautiful knife. However, clean forge work can save you a lot of time.

Keep in mind I'm not a bladesmith so I'll admit a certain amount of bias.

[Malleus]

As Thomas Powers suggested, I think a lot of it is a money thing.  Many people are willing to pay up for a nice, hand-forged knife.  More often than not, people just won't give the same amount of money for a nice decorative piece, even though it could have taken the same amount of energy, time, and resources to make.  Also, man has been making knives more than a million years.  I think it's in our DNA.  There's just something manly about making an object that can be used for so many purposes, such as hunting, protection, and many other survival/camp activities.

[Frosty]

Exactly Malleus. A knife is a human's claws. Bare handed we're pitifully armed but given a sharp stick, stone chip, ground bone, metal blade, etc. and we're the match of most anything out there, air land or sea. 

I knew 1 mil years was way too current so did a quick search for "earliest stone tools" I knew the Oldowan stone tools were more than 2 mil. 2.6 according to the search. 

The oldest stone tools known are are 3.3 million BP. Pre human. 

So, yeah blades are part of our instincts, they're hard wired in as a way to survive. Make shelter, clothes, harvest and prepare food, kill and prepare food and defend ourselves against come what may. 

So yes, blades speak to our souls and are very attractive. I feel undressed if I don't have my Oldtimer in my pocket and yes it'll shave.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Malleus]

Well said, Frosty.  Actually, I was thinking somewhere between 2.5 a 3.5 million years, but from past experience, I figured I would get pushback from someone here, had I stated as such.  So I decided to play it soft, in order to avoid a potential opportunity for ridicule. 

[ThomasPowers]

"More than"  did cover earlier times.  A bit of the 'Song of the Men's Side', Rudyard Kipling:

Once we feared The Beast – when he followed us we ran,
  Ran very fast though we knew
    It was not right that The Beast should master Man;
   But what could we Flint-workers do?
    The Beast only grinned at our spears round his ears–
  Grinned at the hammers that we made;
    But now we will hunt him for the life with the Knife–
  And this is the Buyer of the Blade!
       Room for  his shadow on the grass – let it pass!
          To left and right-stand clear!
       This is the Buyer of the Blade – be afraid!
         This is the great god Tyr!

[George N. M.]

I don't really subscribe to the idea of "racial memory" but there are some tools that we seem to instictively how to use and feel "right" in our hands, a knife, a hammer, a canoe paddle, a spear, etc..  We have been evolutionarily selected to be tool users and know how to use them without much thought.  I think that is the fascination that many of us have with tools in general and certain tools in particular and why we feel a certain attraction to certain tools.

BTW, Thomas, I quoted the Song of the Men's Side, both the poem and the Leslie Fish song version back on page 1 of this thread but it is always nice to see/hear it again.  Kipling is always a good way to start the day.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Frosty]

I didn't mean to infer "racial memory," I haven't seen much evidence that can't be more easily and logically explained by selection. The homonids that used tools and learned to improve them had a better chance of passing their genes along. Instinct is inherited behavior and behavior has many complex factors driving it in any given situation. 

Using and making tools has been such an integral part of human survival since before we were "human," how can it NOT make us feel better to have a tool in our hand? Something sharp to cut with has been with us almost as long as "the something with which to hit it, whatever IT is." Throw IT at came later, even Lucy's skeleton wasn't any more suited to throwing than a Chimp's and they mostly flail things as distractions.

Clubs probably came before blades, you do see chimps using branches to fend off adversaries and predators, it's a small leap to discover a stick or branch without branches is easier to handle and does more damage. I can think of several ways to discover sharpening the end.

Probably the easiest way to make that discovery is by skewering meat on sticks ripped from the carcass we stole from a predator or killed by hammering on it with rocks. A small twig is easier to push into meat but they tend to burn or bend and spill dinner in the fire. The burned end ot the larger stick pushes in pretty easily even though it's larger but the charcoal doesn't taste so good so I'll rub it off on a rock. And so on. Sharp pointy sticks we know are easy to shove into flesh. 

So, yes I attribute our fascination with knives with selected survival instinct. 

Frosty The Lucky.