Hey folks, Just dropping a little intro here. I've spent the past few years getting more and more interested in knife making, and am slowly starting to look around at the different things I would potentially need to get started! Looking forward to reading about all of your adventures, mishaps, and preferences.
Hey welcome to the forum! Hopefully we see more adventures than mishaps, but if I recall the 2nd law of knifemaking: "All mishaps are in fact design features" we should be good. Keep us posted with the mischief you get into. Dan
Welcome! As for what you may ‘potentially need,’ is definitely the proverbial, ‘can of worms,’ lol. Go on, open it, haha!
Welcome to the group, @ZeColmeia. What you need to get started is pretty minimal. Keeping it to minimal when there are so many cool toys out there is difficult. And Dan forgot the 1st law of knifemaking. "A dropped knife will invariably fall point first." Don't wear sandals in the shop.
Thanks! And I agree completely. There really are a lot of cool toys, gadgets, and gizmos out there. I'm started doing some research into super simple DIY 2 brick forges, and think that's the route I'm going to take for the time being, just because I don't know if I'm even going to like this. It looks really cool watching videos and everything, and I'm enjoying learning about forging and blade making, but there's no point in spending a few thousand dollars on those cool things if I end up not enjoying it and then have to try and resell everything. Definitely not a flip flop kind of work space, that's for sure. I've got a nice, comfortable pair of work boots that I wear to work every day, that I'll be using.
I am stock removal guy and it couldn't be simpler to get into. Files, hacksaw, sandpaper, drill and good vice attached to a solid bench. Once I realized I could make my own equipment, I was "in deep" so to speak. So far I have fabricated a couple of 2" x 72" grinders with various attachments, a gas forge, a post anvil, a knifemaker's vise, a heat treatment oven and many more little tools and jigs. It's an extremely satisfying hobby. One could keep learning and improving over an entire lifetime. The results are these super cool, useful tools.
Welcome to the forum Zecolmeia. If you've seen Dancom's website it seems you can find all the info you need to get started. It was his sight that I got my first pattern from for my first knife. Careful, this interest can really pull you in fast. It's fun setting up too. Hey got to go, wife's calling but I'm from Winnipeg too. I made my own forge, love it, and got all the parts to make an oven but decided to buy one, mostly because I found the build more than I wanted to take on. You're very welcome to everything, the brick structure is built but can come apart easy. PID, thermocouple, some special wire for the element and probably some other stuff. Anyway, again welcome.
I second this. I started a few years ago and Dan's site was a huge help. As noted, you don't need a lot of expensive tools. When you buy tools you aren't paying for added quality, you're paying for efficiency. You can do pretty much everything with some files and sand paper. Take your time and don't get too excited to slap a handle on. Try your best at every stage and you'll progress fast.
