Bill Menees's Blog

This is the final version of Menees Knife #4. I included two left views of the knife to show the way different lighting angles affect the appearance. It's really hard to take great looking knife pictures. They never quite capture the coolness of seeing the knife in person.

I finished this knife today at Bob's. I did a little more belt grinding to remove some of the scratches on the tang, and I did a lot of buffing with the green and white compounds. Several times after "finishing" the buffing I noticed some other scratches, and I had to go back to the belt sander to get them out. Then it was back to the buffer for more green and then more white compound.

It turned out to be a pretty nice first knife, and I'm extremely grateful for all of Bob's help. It's a way better knife thanks to his mentoring than it would have been if I'd just started grinding away at stuff. I learned a lot making this one, and I can probably make the next knife quicker and better. However, I'll be back in my shop with just my tools, which aren't nearly as cool as Bob's, so that will work against my "quicker and better" goal.

Bob made the sheath for this knife, and as he worked he explained the entire sheath-making process to me while I took notes. He did the whole thing in about an hour, and it would have gone faster if I hadn't kept stopping him to ask so many questions. For my next knife I'll make my own sheath, and we'll see how it goes. Bob gave me lots of tips on completing the fit and finish of a sheath so it will look very professional with only a little bit of extra work.

Bob sent me home with some D-2 tool steel to work on, so I hope to start on another knife soon. My knifemaking hobby will have to slow down in September for some martial arts stuff, and I also have to finish my book: The Road To Shodan. After that I'll be diving back into knifemaking head first!

Material: ATS-34 steel with cherry Dymondwood handles
Blade Length: 4 1/8"
Overall Length: 8 3/4"
Started: July 9, 2006
Finished: August 20, 2006

Labels: Knifemaking

Someone recently referred me to http://www.technicalvideorental.com/. They rent videos on knifemaking plus lots of other topics (e.g., aircraft piloting, woodworking, casting). Most rentals are $10-$15, which is a lot cheaper than buying the videos.

I haven't rented anything from them yet, but I'll be trying them out soon. They have a cool looking video on making katanas and a couple of videos about hollow grinding knives, which as I said earlier is hard.

Labels: Knifemaking

I've continued to work on my fourth knife. I've shaped up the right side using files and sandpaper (120, 240, and 400 grit), and I've matched it to the left side using a contour gauge as closely as I can. Doing this by hand (vs. machine) takes a non-trivial amount of time.

When I took it out in the sunlight to shoot the pictures, I noticed a few more tiny scratches that I'll have to sand out tonight. I'm going back to Bob's this weekend, and I'll see what he thinks of my work.

In case you're wondering, the blue masking tape on the blade is to protect it from scratches by files, sandpaper, 4-year boys, etc.

Stats so far:

Material: ATS-34 steel with cherry Dymondwood handles
Blade Length: 4 1/8"
Overall Length: 8 3/4"
Started: July 9, 2006

Labels: Knifemaking

This is a preview of my fourth knife. I'm making it with the help of Bob Levine, the Tennessee state mentor for the Knifemaker's Guild. This knife is still a work in progress. Notice that the right-side handle hasn't been shaped yet. Final clean up and polishing hasn't been done, and it's not sharpened.

I made the blade when I visited Bob on July 9th, and we got it all the way through heat treating. I went back on July 30th to polish it and put on the handles. I'm currently working on shaping it up before I go back to Bob's again. He lives an hour and a half away, so I can't visit him as often as I'd like. Next time I go, we'll finish up the knife and make a sheath. I'll post more info here when it's done.

Thoughts so far:

Hollow grinding is hard. Well, making it look good and staying in the groove is hard. The rest of the knifemaking process has been much easier by comparison.

Stats so far:

Material: ATS-34 steel with cherry Dymondwood handles
Started: July 9, 2006

Labels: Knifemaking

This is my first knife that I think is really cool. I got some oak at Lowe’s, and it makes for much harder blades. It’s a little too porous, but it’s beautiful, cheap, and hard, so I’m working with it.

The blade shape is basically a rip-off of the main blades on Gil Hibben’s “Alien” fantasy knife. The handle shape is a rip-off of one I saw on a tactical knife in Blade magazine. I shaped the blade with my rotary wizard and belt sander. The rotary wizard is a must for the hook and the concave curves on the top of the blade.

I did the “filework” on this blade using a woodcarving chisel. I started with a triangle file, but the oak kept splintering. So I ended up just using a straight-bladed chisel to push in on either side of my marks, and the divots come out nice and clean.

I used Super Glue to put on the handles, and I used a drill press to drill 1/16th holes through the entire handle. Then I tapped nails through, clipped them off, and filed them down. After that I used the rotary wizard (mounted in the vise now) to shape the handle contours.

This knife has plenty of imperfections, but it’s way better than my first two knives. I think it looks cool. I wish the “thumb rest” on top of the handle came up a little farther. It would be more comfortable that way, and it could use some cool looking straight file marks to improve the grip. But since I only had 1¼” oak for the blade, I couldn’t make it go up any higher. If I ever make this knife in steel (which I’d like to), I need to start with 1½” bar stock.

Also, I’d like to round the handle off a little more, but since I only had ¼” poplar handle slabs, I didn’t want to take too much off. The grip would feel too thin. If I had 3/8” slabs to start with I could do more rounding off. Currently, the handle is a little blocky given the rest of the curves on the knife.

Material: 1¼”x ¼” Oak blade and 1¼”x ¼” Poplar handles
Blade Length: 5 7/8”
Overall Length: 11”
Started: July 15, 2006
Finished: July 23, 2006

Labels: Knifemaking

After making my first knife I got in touch with Bob Levine the TN state mentor for the Knifemaker’s Guild. I set up an appointment to go work with him for a day, and he told me there was nothing wrong with making wood knives until I got the equipment to make steel knives. He said he occasionally made and sold wood knives, and he later showed me some of them.

I’ve always loved swords and daggers, so I started making a dagger. Bob told me that double-edged knives are harder to make, and he was right. I cut the blade out with my scroll saw and shaped it with my rotary wizard. It was uneven and a little ugly.

I decided to put a guard on this one, so I cut the tang down and made an elliptical guard to fit it. I drilled the guard hole out, and then used an Xacto knife to shave it out to a square slot. It made a really tight fit. The guard was still little ugly, so I did some filework on it. That made it more interesting and slightly less ugly. I wish I’d planned ahead better and done the filework before I put the guard on. The file left some dings on the blade.
For handles I used two pieces of pine the same width as the tang. I used “Liquid Nails” to glue them on, and I didn’t pin them. Instead I took some old twine and did a very tight handle wrap using the instructions I found at http://runningdogknife.homestead.com/cordwrap.html. To keep the wrap from sliding off the butt end, I made a pommel using a wood screw and several washers. It isn’t pretty, but it works.

Update: In mid-July 2006, I got a belt sander, and I used that to smooth out some of the wavy spots on the blade. It’s still not a very pretty knife, but at least it’s less ugly.

Material: 1”x ¼” Pine
Blade Length: 7 ¾”
Overall Length: 12 7/8”
Started: Early July 2006
Finished: Mid July 2006

Labels: Knifemaking

This is the first knife I ever made. I’d been reading about knife making, and my father-in-law gave me a new scroll saw. I grabbed some pine strip and drew a knife blade on it. I used the scroll saw to cut the lines (instead of saving the lines), and then I went to work with my Black and Decker rotary wizard. I sanded everything with the rotary wizard, and I was holding both the tool and knife in my hands.

I used a cutting disc on the tool to carve out the saw teeth on the back of the blade. I didn’t mark them first, so they’re not spaced evenly. And I was still holding both pieces in my hands, which made for imprecise work.

I used a rectangular file to do the file work on the tang because that’s the only file I had at the time. It didn’t turn out too badly, but I had to go over each file mark with sandpaper to get off the splinters.

I used the same pine strip to make two handle slabs. I super glued them on and then drove two nails through it. Unfortunately one nail chipped the far side handle pretty bad. After I used the rotary wizard to carve the finger grips, I added on some non-slip decking strips to make very gritty handles. It looks ok, and it covers up the chipped pinout. The grit may sound painful, but it actually doesn’t feel too bad. Unfortunately, a little grit comes off each time I pick it up. :-(

Update: In mid-July 2006 I got a small 1”x30” belt sander, and I ran that back over the blade edge to smooth out some of the uneven spots created by hand sanding with the rotary wizard. That made it look a little nicer, but not much nicer. This knife is pretty in a way… far away.

Material: 1”x ¼” Pine
Blade Length: 5”
Overall Length: 9 3/16”
Started: Late June 2006
Finished: Mid July 2006

Labels: Knifemaking

I've created this blog for a few reasons:

• I'm a programmer, and I have several CharityWare apps available on http://www.menees.com/. When I update any of them, I can use this blog to notify anyone that cares.
• I'm a martial artist, and I'm writing a book called The Road To Shodan: A Guide To Reaching First Degree Black Belt. I'm going to self-publish it sometime later this year using lulu.com, and I plan to communicate publically about the book through this blog.
• I'm a beginning knifemaker, and I'll be publishing photos of my knives and stories of my workshop experiences. Hopefully I can get feedback from a wide group of people here.

If any of this sounds interesting to you, please subscribe to my feed. If you'd like to know a little more about me, you can see my short biography at http://www.conradjoneskarate.com/.

Labels: Knifemaking, Martial Arts, Software