Knife making is the process of manufacturing a knife by any one or a combination of processes: stock removal, forging to shape, welded lamination or investment cast. [1] Typical metals used come from the carbon steel, tool, or stainless steel families. Primitive knives have been made from bronze, copper, brass, iron, obsidian, and flint. [1]
Different steels are suited to different applications. There is a trade off between hardness, toughness, edge retention, corrosion resistance, and achievable sharpness. Some examples of blade material and their relative trade offs:
Unusual non-metallic materials may also be used; manufacturing techniques are quite different from metal:
The initial shaping of a knife is traditionally done through forging though stock removal or blanking can be used. Steel can be folded either to form decorative pattern welded steel or to refine raw steel, or as the Japanese call it, tamahagane. Grain size is kept at a minimum as grain growth can happen quite easily if the blade material is overheated. [4]
In a mass production environment, or in a well equipped private shop, the blanking process is used to make "blade blanks." This can be achieved by a number of different methods, depending upon the thickness of the material and the alloy content of steel to be cut. Thinner cross section, lower alloy blanks can be stamped from sheet material. Materials that are more difficult to work with, or jobs that require higher production volume, can be accomplished with water jet cutters, lasers or electron beam cutting. These two lend themselves towards larger custom shops.
Knife makers will sometimes contract out to a shop with the above capabilities to do blanking. For lower production makers, or lower budgets, other methods must suffice. Knife makers may use many different methods to profile a blank. These can include hacksaws, files, belt grinders, wheel grinders, oxy-acetylene torches, CNC mills, bandsaws, or any number of other methods depending on budget.
If no power equipment is available, this can be done with files if the piece of steel has not yet been hardened. Grinding wheels, or small belt sanders are usually what a beginner uses. Well equipped makers usually use a large industrial belt grinder, or a belt grinder made specifically for knife making. The standard size for a knifemakers' belt grinder is a grinder that runs a belt size of 2" by 72". Pre-polish grinding on a heat treated blade can be done if the blade is kept cool, to preserve the temper of the steel. Overheating can be observed in the knife by watching for heat discoloration. Some knife makers will use a coolant mist on the grinder to achieve this.
Methods of heat treatment: atmosphere furnace, molten salt, vacuum furnace, coal (coke) forge, oxy/acetylene torch. Quenching after heat treatment differs according to type of metal and personal preferences. Quenching can be done with oil, animal tallow, water, air, or brine. Most steels will require a specific temperature, soak time, and tempering heat for the different grades.
The finish quality of the blade is determined by the Grit of the finishing grind. These can range from a low-shine 280-320 grit finish to a mirror-shine. The high polish shine can be accomplished by buffing with chrome oxide (ex. white chrome, green chrome), hand rubbing with extremely fine wet-or-dry abrasive paper, or with a Japanese water-stone, which has an approximate grit of 10,000-12,000. The knife might also have a different direction in scratch pattern, depending on the method of finishing.
Handle making can be done in several different ways depending on the tang of the knife. Full tang knives usually have handle scales either pinned, riveted, or screwed on to the tang itself while knives without a full tang may be inserted into a solid handle and then attached in one of the previously stated methods. Handle materials can range from natural materials including wood or elk horn to man-made materials like brass, plastic, carbon fiber, polymer or micarta. A knife makers grinder may have additional attachments for making knife handles, such as small diameter contact wheels.
A knife is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least 2.5 million years ago, as evidenced by the Oldowan tools. Originally made of wood, bone, and stone, over the centuries, in step with improvements in both metallurgy and manufacturing, knife blades have been made from copper, bronze, iron, steel, ceramic, and titanium. Most modern knives have either fixed or folding blades; blade patterns and styles vary by maker and country of origin.
Differential heat treatment is a technique used during heat treating of steel to harden or soften certain areas of an object, creating a difference in hardness between these areas. There are many techniques for creating a difference in properties, but most can be defined as either differential hardening or differential tempering. These were common heat treatment techniques used historically in Europe and Asia, with possibly the most widely known example being from Japanese swordsmithing. Some modern varieties were developed in the twentieth century as metallurgical knowledge and technology rapidly increased.
A blade is the portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with an edge that is designed to puncture, chop, slice or scrape surfaces or materials. Blades are typically made from materials that are harder than those they are to be used on. Historically, humans have made blades from flaking stones such as flint or obsidian, and from various metal such as copper, bronze, and iron. Modern blades are often made of steel or ceramic. Blades are one of humanity's oldest tools, and continue to be used for combat, food preparation, and other purposes.
A Japanese kitchen knife is a type of a knife used for food preparation. These knives come in many different varieties and are often made using traditional Japanese blacksmithing techniques. They can be made from stainless steel, or hagane, which is the same kind of steel used to make Japanese swords. Most knives are referred to as hōchō or the variation -bōchō in compound words but can have other names including -kiri. There are four general categories used to distinguish the Japanese knife designs: handle, blade grind, steel, and construction.
A puukko is a small traditional Finnish general purpose belt knife with a single curved cutting edge, solid hidden tang, and usually, a flat spine. Military models of puukko were popular in the Russian criminal underworld under the name "Finnish knife" or finka since the 20th century. The modified version were among the models on which the Soviet military knife NR-40 was based and which was informally called "finka".
A kitchen knife is any knife that is intended to be used in food preparation. While much of this work can be accomplished with a few general-purpose knives – notably a large chef's knife, a tough cleaver, a small paring knife and some sort of serrated blade – there are also many specialized knives that are designed for specific tasks. Kitchen knives can be made from several different materials.
In cooking, a chef's knife, also known as a cook's knife, is a cutting tool used in food preparation. The chef's knife was originally designed primarily to slice and disjoint large cuts of beef. Today it is the primary general-utility knife for most Western cooks.
Case-hardening or Carburization is the process of introducing carbon to the surface of a low carbon iron or much more commonly low carbon steel object in order to enable the surface to be hardened.
WÜSTHOF is a knife-maker based in Solingen, Germany. Family owned for seven generations, the company's main products are mid-priced to high-end kitchen knives for domestic and professional use. WÜSTHOF is one of the leading manufacturers of chef's knives.
Sharpening is the process of creating or refining the edge joining two non-coplanar faces into a converging apex, thereby creating an edge of appropriate shape on a tool or implement designed for cutting. Sharpening is done by removing material on an implement with an abrasive substance harder than the material of the implement, followed sometimes by processes to polish/hone the sharp surface to increase smoothness.
Bladesmithing is the art of making knives, swords, daggers and other blades using a forge, hammer, anvil, and other smithing tools. Bladesmiths employ a variety of metalworking techniques similar to those used by blacksmiths, as well as woodworking for knife and sword handles, and often leatherworking for sheaths. Bladesmithing is an art that is thousands of years old and found in cultures as diverse as China, Japan, India, Germany, Korea, the Middle East, Spain and the British Isles. As with any art shrouded in history, there are myths and misconceptions about the process. While traditionally bladesmithing referred to the manufacture of any blade by any means, the majority of contemporary craftsmen referred to as bladesmiths are those who primarily manufacture blades by means of using a forge to shape the blade as opposed to knifemakers who form blades by use of the stock removal method, although there is some overlap between both crafts.
Polishing and buffing are finishing processes for smoothing a workpiece's surface using an abrasive and a work wheel or a leather strop. Technically, polishing refers to processes that uses an abrasive that is glued to the work wheel, while buffing uses a loose abrasive applied to the work wheel. Polishing is a more aggressive process, while buffing is less harsh, which leads to a smoother, brighter finish. A common misconception is that a polished surface has a mirror-bright finish, however, most mirror-bright finishes are actually buffed.
A diamond tool is a cutting tool with diamond grains fixed on the functional parts of the tool via a bonding material or another method. As diamond is a superhard material, diamond tools have many advantages as compared with tools made with common abrasives such as corundum and silicon carbide.
W.R. Case & Sons Cutlery Company is an American manufacturer of traditional pocket knives, fixed blades/sporting knives, kitchen knives, limited edition commemoratives and collectibles. The company originated in Little Valley, New York, around the turn of the 20th century, before relocating to its current home, Bradford, Pennsylvania, in 1905. The company's namesake, William Russell Case, first made knives with his brothers under the name Case Brothers Cutlery Company. His son, John Russell ("Russ") Case, worked as a salesman for his father's company before founding W.R. Case & Sons.
Honyaki (本焼) is the name for the Japanese traditional method of metalwork construction most often seen in kitchen knives by forging a blade, with a technique most similar to the tradition of nihonto, from a single piece of high-carbon steel covered with clay to yield upon quench a soft, resilient spine, a hamon, and a hard, sharp edge. Honyaki as a term alone can refer to either mizu honyaki (water-quench) or abura honyaki. The goal is to produce a sharper, longer lasting edge than is usually achievable with the lamination method. The term has been adapted to describe high-end mono-stainless in Japan and carbon blades by non-Japanese bladesmiths that have a hamon but are made with Western steel, heat treat, equipment, finishing, and design.
Thiers Issard or Thiers Issard Sabatier is a French cutlery manufacturer; they are one of a number of companies using the Sabatier name. It exports a wide range of knives and straight razors to approximately thirty countries. They are viewed as one of the top cutlery firms in Europe.
The United States Marine Raider stiletto was issued to the Marine Raiders and 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion during World War II.
Mad Dog Knives is a custom knifemaking facility headed by Kevin McClung, a former Senior Materials Scientist at the American Rocket Company, Mad Dog Knives is based in Prescott, Arizona. Mad Dog Knives made the fixed-blade knife known as the ATAK, used by Naval Special Warfare Groups 1 and 2 after the "SEAL Trials" of 1992. Mad Dog Knives are typically made from selectively tempered, hand ground O1 Tool Steel with a hardchrome plating to protect the blade.
A laminated steel blade or piled steel is a knife, sword, or other tool blade made out of layers of differing types of steel, rather than a single homogeneous alloy. The earliest steel blades were laminated out of necessity, due to the early bloomery method of smelting iron, which made production of steel expensive and inconsistent. Laminated steel offered both a way to average out the properties of the steel, as well as a way to restrict high carbon steel to the areas that needed it most. Laminated steel blades are still produced today for specialized applications, where different requirements at different points in the blade are met by use of different alloys, forged together into a single blade.
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