I Descend into the Culture of Undateable Males who Play D&D

I guess I should know better than to do this, but I decided to try a new hobby: knifemaking.

Hear me out. Yes, I realize I have 10,000 tools, and I produce little of value with them. I still don’t have CNC under control. Yes. True. But if you think about it, knifemaking isn’t really a new hobby. It’s something to do with the stuff I already have.

Knives were a big part of my childhood. My favorite great uncle lived down the road from my grandfather, and when I was staying with my grandparents, I used to walk to his house and trade knives with him.

Trading knives is something you’re supposed to do, if you live in Eastern Kentucky.

He had a cigar box full of old pocketknives, like Cases and Remingtons, and he used to show them to me and tell me which brands were best.

I think he got the best of me most of the time.

Since I’ve been old enough to have pockets, I’ve always carried a knife. Unusual for a kid raised in Florida suburbs. I carried one in school. Try that now. The estrogen dealers who run the schools would tape you to a chair and have you analyzed.

The first decent pocketknife I owned was a Gerber. They used to make good knives. I went into a store in Lexington, Kentucky and bought a PK-2 folder made from 440C, which is a wonderful type of stainless steel.

I could tell it was a step up from the knives people up in the hills traded. You could spend an hour carving on a piece of hardwood and still use it to pop little hairs off of your wrist. It stayed sharp. That doesn’t work with a 1970 Case pocketknife.

I carry a Gerber Gator II now. It’s a big knife with a rubbery handle. The steel is not great, but it sharpens fast, and that means I’m less reluctant to use it. When you use a knife, you dull it, and then you have to sharpen it, and that’s work.

There are two nice things about the Gator. First, it cost me $15. It was so cheap, I bought two. Second, you can open it instantly by flicking your wrist. You don’t have to have a thumb stud, and you don’t have to worry about it popping open in your pants, the way switchblades do. I carried a switchblade for a while, and it tended to open by itself. It had a safety, but that made it busy and annoying to open.

For some reason or other, I decided to look at a knifemaker’s Youtube videos the other day. I don’t want to say his name. They were very informative. I was shocked to see how easy it was to make a knife. Basically, you buy a piece of flat steel, and you use files and a belt grinder to shape it. Then you drill a couple of holes in it and attach the grips and hardware, and you sand it to the correct profile.

I can do that! I had always been intimidated by knifemaking, but man, it’s simple.

Here’s why I won’t say the man’s name: his knives are awful. I looked at his website, and he had some knives for sale. I’m sure they work well, but they looked crude. That was encouraging. I knew I could draw something nicer than that. He seems like a great guy, so I do not want to do anything that could be perceived as calling him out.

I can already tell what I’m going to run into: the knife culture. There are a lot of weirdos out there who think of knives as horror movie props. I joined a forum, and I’m sure I’m going to run into guys who call themselves things like Dethskull and DragonLord. I want no part of that mindset. I am not interested in making scary instruments that look like the devil uses them to pick his teeth. I’m not looking to make boot knives or belt buckle knives or stilettos I can polish while staring at white supremacist forums. I do think it would be nice to have some custom-made kitchen knives, though.

I decided to start with a birds beak paring knife. The Japanese make them. It’s a tiny knife with a curved, pointed blade. I don’t pare anything, but these knives are great for boning poultry. I bought a couple of pricey Japanese ones, and they’re not very good. On top of that, like most Japanese kitchen knives, they have to be treated like sick babies. They fall apart if you blink at them. I also have two $5 Forschners with plastic handles. Very nice, but I’d like to have something with a thicker blade.

As far as I know, the 440C knives I’ve had have been the best, so I checked around, and it looks like this is a popular steel for beginners. I found a 12″ bar for $9, so I don’t think I can go wrong. I ordered a few bits to go with it.

I don’t have a big, manly 2×72 belt grinder, which is the optimal tool for shaping knives, but I do have a 1×42, and it will get the job done eventually.

The big problem with this is that if I succeed, I’ll have to fix a turkey. That’s a lot of work.

It would also be nice to have a 440C cleaver shaped to resemble the astonishing $9 carbon steel cleaver I bought from The Wok Shop. If you have no other kitchen knife, and you can learn to use a diamond sharpener, this is the knife you want.

The stuff should get here next week. If I get anywhere with it, I’ll post a photo. If not, I’ll delete this post and pretend nothing happened.