Knife Making Basics

Knife making, also known as bladesmithing, is the process of manufacturing a knife, sword or other bladed cutting instrument by any one or a combination of processes: stock removal, forging to shape, welded lamination or investment cast.

Typical metals used come from the carbon steel, tool, or stainless steel families. Primitive knives have been made from bronze, copper, brass, iron, obsidian, and flint.

Materials for blades
Different steels are suited to different applications. There is a tradeoff between hardness, toughness, edge retention, corrosion resistance, and achievable sharpness. Some examples of blade material and their relative tradeoffs:

Obsidian can achieve a nearly molecular edge (high achievable sharpness) and only requires stone age technology to work, but is so brittle that it cannot maintain that sharpness for very long. Also the entire blade is very easy to break by accident. The newest powder metallurgy steels can be made very hard, but can quickly wear out abrasives and tooling. A blade made from low carbon or mild steel would be inexpensive to produce and of poor quality. A low carbon blade would be very hard to break, but would bend easily and be too soft to hold an edge.

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