Nothing but KnivesIn this class the student will start by learning the basic moves of knife-making on a piece of mild steel, ending up with a letter-opener if all goes well, and then move on to a piece of high-carbon spring steel and make a small, simple, one piece knife, suitable for cooking, eating, or general use.
Focus will be entirely on making a knife; only those tools, techniques and concepts needed for knife making will be addressed. The fires will be managed by the instructor.
Techniques include: straightening, drawing out, forging high-carbon steel, twisting, flattening, annealing, filing, grinding, hardening, and tempering.
9 hours in three 3 hour meetings dates×
Smithing experience is not *absolutely* required for this class but if you have not struck hot iron before we strongly recommend taking "A Taste of Blacksmithing" or "Forged Bottle Opener" first (watching a whole lot of Forged in Fire is not enough). Doing so will help keep the knife class on schedule and really, the more hammer-time you have, the more likely you'll make something like a knife.
Instructor: Carl West
$315
Class size is limited to 4 students (one per forge).
Gift Certificates for Nothing but Knives are available.
Please wear proper clothing for visiting or working in the forge: closed toe shoes (preferably leather, preferably high-topped. Sneakers are sufficient.), natural fiber clothing, long pants that cover the tops of the shoes. Click here for more safety information.
This class is either: If you're interested in taking Nothing but Knives and it's not on the calendar, please tell us using our Waiting-List Page.
Dates and Times:
- not upcoming on our schedule,
- or we've fallen behind in our clerical duties and not entered it in the database.
If you found it on our calendar page, we are planning to offer it on that date.