Knife Making for Beginners: Step-by-step Projects for Grinding, Shaping, and Finishing Your First Fixed Blade Knife — No Forge Required

Cole Branson has carried a fixed blade knife in the Montana backcountry for thirty years. He’s sharpened them on creek stones, repaired them at camp, and eventually started making them — first from curiosity, then from preference, and finally from the conviction that a knife you made yourself is a different kind of tool entirely. In Knife Making for Beginners, he teaches the stock removal method: taking flat bar stock of high-carbon steel and grinding, filing, and finishing it into a functional knife without a forge or anvil. Four beginner projects — a camp knife, a hunter, a kitchen utility knife, and a compact belt knife — build every technique you need. Full coverage of heat treatment, handle making, edge geometry, and sheath work. The only tools you need are an angle grinder, a drill, a propane torch, and the patience to go slowly.