Thread: How to make a carving tool from a pocket knife

Please keep going with the series - I have a knife I have in mind for using in carving and I'm looking forward to your posts with keen interest

I find three blades, properly shaped, to be adequate for most things. Thus a 'stockman' style knife, made of good steel is a good starting point. The one in photo below is made by a company called Frost Cuttlery and has 440C stainless steel blades. I like this company because it's the only one that I know of that actually tests and gives a written guarantee of steel hardness. They put a little sticker on each knife showing where the test was conducted. You can just make out the slight indent where the diamond tester pressed into the steel of the blade to the right of the sticker. I remove the sticker during the shaping and sharpening process.

let's look at each blade separately. Most 'stockman' style knives have a large 'clip point' blade, a smaller 'gelding' or sheep's foot' blade and a smaller 'spear point', 'spey' or 'pen' blade. Though the exact combination varies, the technique for modifying them remains the same.

Starting with the smallest blade. This one is a spear point or sometimes called a pen blade depending not so much on its shape as its size. I've shown the blade with a bit of red texta to show where I intend to remove material. The texta was only a rough guide. I ended up taking off a bit more to get the fine point I was after. Unfortunately, in this case I took a bit too much of the nail nick out so I had to enlarge the nick a bit with a Dremel so one could get the blade open. Try to avoid this if you can, though if you need to enlarge the nick it's not all that hard to do with a Dremel cutting disk.

Below in the first photo you can see the blade is now shaped. The following photo shows it sharpened. This fine point is the one I use for detail. Note too that I've left a slight sweep or curve to the blade. This is also a handy feature as it allows the blade to cut hollows which is hard for a blade whose cutting edge is straight.

The next blade is a gelding or sheep's foot blade. It has a flat cutting edge but its point is quite thick making it difficult to use for detail work. The first photo shows the blade, the second shows the area I intend to remove marked in red.

I have been trying to post this series for quite a while but each post crashes at least 2 or 3 times before I can get it to successfully upload. Don't know why. Unfortunately I'm out of time right now, this has taken so long... So I'll come back and finish it later. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks for showing this. I've sorted through my old pocket knives and I'm eagerly awaiting further instructions.

Steve.

Thank you for the instruction on converting a pocket knife for whittling.
I appreciate the effort and willingness to teach.
regards, Ned

Ok... back from the Doc's...

The next photo shows the position of the blade on the grinder and the following photo shows the blade's modified shape while the third photo shows the sharpened blade. Note that this new point is slimmer and thus able to get into tighter corners and manouver more easily. However there is still a straight cutting edge and a fairly strong point. This is the shape I use for most stop cutting and detail in harder woods. The previous blade's fine point is more vulnerable in harder woods.

Finally we come to the large clip point blade. I don't usually modify the shape of this blade. Its too big for most detailed whittling applications but its handy for cleaning up bark and general blocking out of carvings prior to the finer detail work. I just sharpen this blade... I don't change its shape.

The next photo shows two Frost Stockman knives, one modified the other not. You should be able to see the differences in the blades. I've also included another knife that I sell regularly called a 'Colt Railsplitter' This knife has four blades instead of 3 which gives one an extra option in the hand. No other particular advantage.

One final comment on changing blade shapes and sharpening... occasionally in the process of modifying or sharpening folding blades, enough metal is removed so that the blade is not fully housed in the handle leaving a point or part of a sharpened edge exposed. This is obviously quite dangerous as you can accidently cut you hand on the folded blade while using the knife with another blade open. There is a 'heel' to the blade which governs how deep it sits in the handle when closed. This heel is designed to keep the edge from striking the bottom of the handle trench. It can be ground down slightly to make the modified blade sit a little deeper in the handle trench so that no points or edges are exposed BUT BE CAREFUL HOW MUCH YOU TAKE OFF! It only takes a fraction of a millimetre to have a profound effect on where the blade sits in the handle trench. Take too much off the heel and your lovely sharp edge flatens itself on the bottom of the handle trench when closed!

The photo below shows the gelding blade heel slightly ground to drop its point just a bit so that it isn't exposed when the clip point blade is open.

Well that's it. I do 80 to 90 percent of my carving with one of these knives. Of course, over time, one learns what blade shapes do the best work in particular circumstances and will shape a blade for those circumstances alone. Thus one builds up a collection of knives with particular shapes but for the normal day to day, a single 3-bladed knife, modified and sharpened will do most things.

Hope it's clear cause it's the guts of a half day training course I run where I get a lot more time to explain and demonstrate it all!

Wow! Thank you Whittling. Really valuable information, can't wait to give it a go. Thanks for going to so much trouble, really appreciate it.
thanks
Featherwood