Making Knives

Blade after I sawed off excess length and belt sanded the middle section

The fire station and the anvils we hammered away on

My hammer next to blade after brass and handle have been attached and sanded down

Rambo, is that you?

Mine is the first on the right. Original piece of steel is shown above

Finished Product

So, about a week ago we were relaxing on Lake Wanaka. Ok, we were actually waiting for road side assistance to come because I forgot to turn the lights off and Ace's battery died. However, leaving the lights on turned out to be a blessing because as we were killing time we began talking to and old man who had parked next to us. We were swapping stories about our travels when the nice gentlemen asked if we were traveling north, up the west coast. When we said we were he insisted that we needed to stop on a place named Barrytown to make a knife. He pulled out a very nice blade and explained that for 130$ you go to a house that overlooks the ocean and spend the entire day turning a piece of steel into a polished and professional looking knife. Lunch and some, "Barrytown champagne" are included and he highly recommended we stop to do it. Olivia had zero interest but there was no way I was going to miss out on making my own badass Rambo style killing machine.

Two days later Olivia dropped me off at a nondescript house on the side of the highway at 915 am. I walked up the drive way and straight into the outdoor knife making workshop. The class was run by an older man named Steven who turned out to be quite a hilarious character. (He was an avid bow hunter before he got knee arthritis, and before semi retiring to teach the knife classes he designed women's lingerie. He also had an outdoor ninja star and hatchet throwing area.) Steven was assisted by his wife Robyn and they never explained anything besides the next step. This meant that all day we really had no idea what we were doing. Below is a rough description of the steps we had to do in order to turn the big chunk of steel into an actual knife. We worked from 930-430 with a lunch break around noon.

1. We were given a long piece of steel that was very thick and had a crude point at one end. We placed this steel in the fire and were told to pull it out when the blade turned orange. Leaving it in for too long could burn the metal and ruin the entire project, but not leaving it in long enough meant the blade would not be soft enough to hammer...
2. When the blade got orange we had to quickly pull it out of the fire, place it on an anvil, and hammer it into the relative shape we wanted our eventual knife to be. This hammering thinned the blade and depending on how you hit it, also varied its shape. We got very little instruction on this so it was kind of learn as you go. This made it pretty fun, but also nerve racking because you did not want to mess up, and really had no clue if you were doing it right or wrong.
3. After we hammered and the blade cooled we repeated steps 1 and 2, two more times. This allowed us to further mold, shorten, and make the blade skinnier.
4. After the 3rd time we heated the blade one last time and immediately put the hot metal in a bucket of water to cool. The bucket was a mixture of water and "duck shit," according to Steven. Apparently normal steel is too soft to be used as a knife. We heated, hammered, and rapidly cooled the blade in duck water, not only to form it to our personalized shapes, but also because each step added carbon to the blade and thus made it harder. The harder the steel the better the blade.
 5. After the blade was cooled we used a saw to cut off the excess length of the blade. We now had the steel at the length it would be when we completed.
6. After cutting we used a belt sander to sand and shine the middle part of the blade. Steven did not explain why we were only to sand the middle sections. However, we later learned his reasoning, which was that it would have interfered with future steps. This happened often throughout the day, Steven and Robyn gave us directions we did not understand, but as we pushed forward we understood why we had had to do previous steps.
7. With the blades middle now sanded we were given two mirror image pieces of brass. We glued these pieces to the blade where we wanted the handle to begin. After the glue dried we drilled two holes through the brass and blade.
8. We put glue in these holes and then put two brass tubes through the holes. This was to hold the brass pieces securely to the blade.
9. We then cut two pieces of wood that matched the size and shape of our handle. We put glue on the insides of these pieces and attached them below the brass. This wood was the handle. (Fun fact: the wood is called Rimu wood and is indigenous to New Zealand. It is now so endangered that it is illegal to cut down Rimu trees. However, Steven had the wood because a hospital had been dismantled, and he took the old wood. The hospital wads made between 1890 and 1910. This meant that not only is the wood on my handle very rare, it is also from a tree that was cut down between 1890 and 1910.)
10. After the woods handle dried we drilled three holes through it and using the same glue technique put 3 brass tubes in the holes to securely attach the wood to the blade.
11. Using the belt sander we then sanded off any excess wood and brass so that the shape of the blade was identical with the shape handle.
12. We then put a sealant on the handle so that any gaps between the handle and the blade were filled. 13. Lunchtime. We had sandwiches and then took Steven's two mini horses and 17 year old dog for a walk around the property. Before restarting we also had to take a ride on his enormous swing. While we were at lunch Steven sanded off the sealant. (He had to do this because it was very toxic and he needed to wear a huge gas mask for this part. He also had to do some technical work on the blade and handle which we students did not have enough skill to successfully do.
14. When lunch was over our knives were actually starting to look like knives. The next step was the sand down the blade to get rid of imperfections still present from our hammering. To do this we used the belt sander. We had to be very careful not to sand too much, if we over did it the blade would become to skinny and soft.
15. To make sure we did not sand off to much we got a marker and drew on each side of the blade. You knew you had sanded enough when the marker was no longer visible. After the marker had disappeared Steven resharpened the blade.
16. We repeated this step 3 times.
17. After the third time Steven dulled the blade because it was time to do some handwork. Before we started the handwork we had to wrap tape around the handle, leaving only the brass and blade exposed.
18. We had to hand sand the blade. This made the blade lose the most minute imperfections, and it was imperative we only sanded vertically. If we went horizontally it would create ugly striations. We sanded the blade for a total of ten minutes on each side and switched sand paper 3 times.
19. After the blade we sanded the brass and this time we had to do vertical scrapes making sure not to nick the blade. We did this for ten minutes on each side with 3 different pieces of sand paper.
20. We then get metal polish and polished the brass and blade. This was why we had to tape our handle, the metal polish would have given it a very ugly color.
21. With the polish on our blades and brass were shiny and the last step was to paint some wood finish onto the handle to make it the nice dark brown color it shows above. After the polish dried Steven invited us inside and we all toasted with Berrytown Champange. We learned it was boxed white wine that Steven had carbonated, and honestly it was really really good.
22. We all said goodbye and I left with my very own knife. Awesome experience and well worth the time and money. Dicing veggies and chopping meat just got a whole lot easier.
19. We then