Knives (handmade) 101 #6 Design - How to Get the Knife Out of Your Head
Hey guys,
In this session, I want to talk about how I design my knives.
Before I start, a little disclaimer: this is not the only way to do knife design or the best way (by far). This is just how I do it.
I've always been handy with a pencil so sketching a knife on a piece of paper comes kinda naturally to me.
Roughly, you can approach this part of knife making in three ways:
- Drawing a profile on a paper using a pen, pencil, sharpie or whatever you feel comfortable. It's not really precise way to do it. But it does have a personal touch. The downside of this approach is that you can only use your stencil once.
- Modeling a knife in some kind of Cad program. If you feel comfortable using your PC for design this is the way to do it. It's precise and more importantly, you can edit it easily and you can use your "sketch" as many times as you like.
- Using steel, and this one is a two-level - you can draw directly on your steel using a sharpie, layout fluid... or you can just take a bar of steel, start working it and see where it takes you.
I've used both method 1 and 2.
kiridashi I did for Christmas presents
When drawing a knife you do need to keep few things in mind.
Scale & Measurements:
If you are drawing a stencil - something you will cut out and glue to your steel, you have to draw it in 1:1. That's not always easy, people tend to draw either too small or too bit.
To get things a bit into perspective you can take a real knife and mark down three points: tip, beginning and the end of the handle.
If you're drawing where no knife is available for reference, you can use your hand. A hand is a good measurement for a handle :)
You can also use a ruler.
A bushcraft I did some time ago that never got made
Recently, I found a block of papers that has a 0.5 cm grid. That's a big help to get the proportions in order.
A Kiritsuke I did that broke while quenching
Type of The Knife
I usually have an idea in my head when I go to drawing. I'm not saying I don't just doodle and sometimes a knife emerges, but generally speaking, it's hard to draw something you don't see in your mind.
I mostly do kitchen knives, so most of my sketches are - you've guessed it - chef and other food-related knives.
Gyuto & Santoku
Drawing on paper can be fun and relaxing. You can experiment with design and play around with ideas that don't have to get realised.
Couple of K-types
In the end, you don't have to be a knife maker to draw knives. You can do it for fun, or you can draw something that you want to have and ask your friendly knifemaker to make it for you. Check my Full Custom post.
I'll leave you off with this Nakiri that sketch that was used as a starting point for my knife in previous post
Nakiri
As always, drop a comment below if you have any thoughts on anything about knives.
Check out my previous posts on handmade knives:
- Handmade Knives (custom) 101 #1 – Are You Bipolar?
- Knives (handmade) 101 #2 – What’s Wrong With My $10 Supermarket Knife?
- Knives (handmade) 101 #3 What to Think About When Buying a Knife
- Knives (handmade) 101 #4 Full Custom Build
- Knives (handmade) 101 #5 If I Spend a Few 100 $ On a Knife Will It Be Sharp Forever
Great to get an insight into your process. I have actually frequently ended up doing number 3, just started and seen where it took me. It is rarely the road to a great knife, at least not on my first attempt, but sometimes I have wanted to try out a new method for drawing out the metal or a grinding jig, and it has led to something useful, and sometimes I have such a clear image in my mind that the design phase can be skipped altogether. Mostly I do 1 or 2 like you say though.
Thank you. Yep sometimes is cool to just take some steel and start forging or grinding. I do tend to get carried away more often than not - as can be seen by a whole bunch of "shop knives" :)
The first kiridashi is so beautiful!
For the Japanese blades what profile do you do? Symmetrical or asymmetric? good job
A greeting, Nicola
Tnx - I like doing kiries - they are fun and always useful around the shop.
I do most my blades symmetrical, I did do a few chisel grinds but I've noticed that many people tend to avoid them. Not really sure why - so why do something that won't be used.
Oh, except kiridashies - they are always chisel.
Very amazing your creative, some of people can make a knife by drawing first, if in making a tool of course in the first design can be accurate results
I'm not really sure what you're saying, but I'll be vain and just assume there's a praise somewhere in there so, thank you.
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