I wrote up a few lengthy comments on how to make knives and someone pointed out that it’d make a good post, so here we go!

Knifemaking at the artisan scale (vs. mass produced) has been going through a really great revival lately. The options and materials that are available for a knifemaker now are better than they’ve ever been at any point in history to date. And the internet has really helped spread critical knowledge about how to make a good knife.

There’s two main ways of making a knife – forging and stock removal.

• Forging is what most people think of when they hear about someone making a knife – a person banging hot metal with a hammer on an anvil with a coal forge. You buy some steel stock that is ideally as close as possible to the final dimensions of your knife, heat it up and shape it with a hammer and anvil, and then quench it, normally in oil, and temper it, usually with a torch or an oven.
• Stock removal replaces the anvil and hammer with a belt grinder (basically a belt sander on an impressive amount of steroids). Instead of shifting metal around with a hammer, you remove metal via abrasion. The metal shouldn’t ever get hot enough to glow if you’re doing things correctly. You heat treat the knife blade by sending it out to a heat treating facility or doing it yourself with a digitally controlled kiln.