How To: Wooden Knife - With Pictures and Video

Click here for a time-lapse video for this project!!

A round file or file set/ sandpaper
A 1/8" thick piece of wood
Pencil
Paper
Printer
Vise (optional)
Wood finish (optional)
Hand saw

Find a Knife That You Like Online

For this step find a knife that you like online and save the image. You will want to put this image into a document and print it. You will also want to cut out the knife with scissors or an Exacto knife.

Trace the Knife Cut-out

Next, you will want to trace the outside of the cut-out with a pencil on the piece of wood you have picked out.

Sawing the Shape

Using the handsaw, cut out the rough shape of the knife. If you have a vise I would suggest using it throughout your project. It makes things much easier and much faster.

File the Shape of the Blade

Using a file with a larger grit, file down the wood so that you have the general shape of the blade. Be extra careful not to snap the wood while filing. Also, remember that you can file the wood down, but you cannot file the wood back on. So please, for the sake of your project not being messed up, take caution when filing and sawing wood.

Thinning the Blade

For this, you will want to draw a line that marks where the blade and the handle meet each other. Then file down the blade so that your blade is thinner than the handle and the rest of the blade.

Shaping the Handle

For this step, shape the handle using a file. So that your wooden blade is more ergonomic round out the edges of the handle. I also filed out finger rests with my semicircular file so that it rests in my hand well.

Sharpen the Blade

Using an up and down motion with your flat-file sharpen the blade until you are content with it. Be very careful with this step because you may break off the blade and mess up the whole project, and you do not want to mess this up.

All Done!

Looks like you are finished looking at these steps, now go make one! Just a warning though, these can take over 3 hours to make so set aside quite a bit of time to make this. You can make all kinds of shapes and sizes of these and they all look awesome. You may also finish the wood so that it looks even better! Thanks for reading!