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    Make your own Athame

    The Stick Handled Athame

    I make and sell some really, really nice athames, but it’s labor intensive work so they end up being expensive. It’s nice to have fine tools, but you don’t really need them - you could easily use a kitchen knife as an athame… but I’m thinking that a lot of people would enjoy making an athame for themselves.

    I think I’ve figured out a way that almost anybody can make a nice athame quickly and easily, with very few special tools. I call this the Stick Handled Athame because… well… it uses a stick for a handle. You should be able to make one of these for around $30 - 40, even if you have to buy most of the tools. If you follow my instructions, here’s what you’ll end up with:



    You will need a few tools and supplies. Here’s what you’ll need (from left to right):



    A. A knife blade. The one I’m using is about 6 inches long. You can use a larger one if you like. I suggest that you get your blade from Atlanta Cutlery - they have good blades at excellent prices. Here’s a link: http://www.atlantacutlery.com/c-90-k...-supplies.aspx . They call this one a boot dagger blade, and it costs $13.

    B. A stick. Ideally you’ll cut a sapling, let it dry in the basement for a year, then use it. Less than ideally you will find a fallen branch and use that. The problem with the branch is that by the time it drops from the tree it has already begun to deteriorate and is more likely to split when you are working with it. If you do use a fallen branch, I recommend that you do the “optional” step of wire wrapping the end - this will keep the wood from breaking later on while you are using it. Or, you could carve out a chunk of wood.

    C. Some kind of metal for the guard. I recommend either copper or brass because they are easy to work with. I also suggest that you use 14 or 16 gauge metal (the gauge refers to the thickness) because that would be heavy enough to be substantial, but not so heavy that you’ll have trouble working with it. Your best price for copper or brass will come when you buy a 12” x 12” sheet from a jewelry supply company, like
    Contenti (http://www.contenti.com/products/metals/560-123.html), but if you are only making one, you might want to get your small piece of metal from onlinemetals.com (http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant...253&top_cat=87).

    D. A set of files. The set I have pictured comes from Home Depot, and cost about $12. It has every thing you’ll need. It even comes with file handles!

    E. Copper or brass wire. I suggest 18 or 20 gauge. You can get a spool of this from most hardware stores (like Ace) for around $5. This is optional, by the way, but I think it’s a nice touch.

    F. Sandpaper. Get a variety pack of wet/dry sandpaper. This will work on both metal and wood.

    G. Miscellaneous stuff - masking tape, pencil, two part epoxy glue, flat sticks, ruler, hack saw and hack saw blades, wood saw, a bunch of heavy rubber bands, a center punch, hammer, assorted drill bits and a drill.

    ---------- Post added at 09:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:07 PM ----------

    Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.


    #2
    Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Make your own Athame

      Nice instructional, Corbin. One thing I've found works well for guards (which mostly applies to thicker guards) is to drill out the area to fit the tang like you mentioned, and then use some needle files to slowly expand and smooth out the slot until it is just BARELY short of being pushed all the way up flush with the ricasso. I'm talking less than a millimeter. Then, grab a hammer and a wood block with a big hole drilled in it so that it fits over the tang, put the blade in a vice, and give it a few sharp smacks to force the guard up to the ricasso. Then, to top it off, put a block of wood under the guard with the blade still in a vice, get a small punch, and use the punch to stake the slot. The mark from staking it will be covered up by the handle, and the guard will be fixed on there so solidly it may as well be forged out of one piece. An older knifemaker I know taught me the trick, and you probably already know it, but just passing it on

      If you're really one for over-constructing something, after you do that, fill up all the gaps in the guard/tang fit with epoxy as you epoxy the handle on. A nuclear bomb wouldn't be able to loosen that guard up.

      EDIT: Oh, and just to mention it, the old knifemaker I mentioned also uses the needle files to shape the handle precisely to fit the tang, and he hand forges and grinds all of his blades. Every one of his processes takes FOREVER, I mean it takes him 2 weeks to make a bowie knife (it would be longer, but he's been doing it for 40 years), but he sells his knives for about $400 apiece as well.
      "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others."
      -Thomas Jefferson

      Let a man never stir on his road a step
      without his weapons of war;
      for unsure is the knowing when the need shall arise
      of a spear on the way without.
      -

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Make your own Athame

        Very cool! You're very good at instructing this kind of thing. I'm the kitchen knife type. I LOL'd at the one picture where you're working over the comics, and there's Beetle Bailey jumping up & down cussing. That would be me if I tried projects like this!
        sigpic
        Can you hear me, Major Tom? I think I love you.

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Make your own Athame

          Corbin, you have the best tutorials!
          Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
          sigpic

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Make your own Athame

            Originally posted by thalassa View Post
            Corbin, you have the best tutorials!
            LOL - well, you said you wanted internet art lesons

            Hawkfeathers, I wish you lived near me - I'd walk you through it, and you'd find out that you can do a lot more than you think you can! My scrap box is full of things I tried and failed at - sometimes after many hours of work. You just keep hammering away at it (an especially apporpriate metaphor for metal work...), and eventually you'll end up with something nice. It isn't always what you start out making, but... nice is still good!

            Thjoth, when you put the blade in the vice, what do you use to protect it from the jaws? The paper towel trick won't work if you clamp hard enough to hold the blade while you are hammering. Do wooden blocks work?

            I knew the trick about making the slot just a tiny bit too small, but I never thought about staking it in - the would really hold the guard in there nicely.
            Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Make your own Athame

              I'm sure I probably could - my "thing" is photography, though. I'm way right-brained, except when it comes to financial things. Although.....I have successfully built a few of those "assemble it yourself" furniture pieces, including a rather large wall unit complete with glass doors & magnetic catches. I did that very logically - had a stock person help me put the 100+ lb. box in my car, opened the box and carried the pieces inside a few at a time, followed all the instructions precisely. Which left me with a 100+ lb. fully assembled wall unit lying horizontally on the floor, as directed. Of course I couldn't pick it up and place it against the wall. LMAO!!! Hadda phone for help on that last little step!
              The reason I'm proud of these things is, if you've ever done one, you know the instructions are poorly translated from Chinese, in most cases. It's pretty funny!
              sigpic
              Can you hear me, Major Tom? I think I love you.

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Make your own Athame

                Corbin, can you use other stuff, besides wood? What are good candidate materials?
                Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
                sigpic

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: Make your own Athame

                  Originally posted by thalassa View Post
                  Corbin, can you use other stuff, besides wood? What are good candidate materials?
                  Harder to drill, but you could probably use antler or bone.


                  Mostly art.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: Make your own Athame

                    Originally posted by thalassa View Post
                    Corbin, can you use other stuff, besides wood? What are good candidate materials?
                    Yes - Vulcaniclasrtc is right. Both bone and antler make very good handles.

                    Bone (like a leg bone) is already mostly hollow and you can use any long skinny tool (like a chisel or a sharpened screwdriver) to clean out the webby marrow bone on the inside. Antler is solid and needs to be drilled - it's about as easy to drill as the wood.

                    But, basically, any material that you can get a hole in can be used. You could even use a piece of copper water pipe, if you wanted a metal handle, for instance. It would be possible, also, to do something like make a handle by wrapping strips of leather around the tang until it gets thick enough to be comfortable.

                    If you look at the link to the knife blades that I give, you'll see that there are blades with tangs that are flat and as wide as the blade. You can use any flat material that you can drill to make handles for these. You cut two slabs out to rough shape, glue and rivet (epoxy, and special rivets are available called "cutler's rivets") them to the tang, and then finish file & sand them.

                    If you use this method, slabs or bone, or horn (water buffalo is usual), or ivory, or wood, or mother of pearl, and even plastic make nice handles. Pretty much all of this material is available from people on the web who sell knife mating supplies, or I can usually get them for you.
                    Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: Make your own Athame

                      I am thoroughly impressed, Corbin.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: Make your own Athame

                        I love your craft threads
                        Circe

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: Make your own Athame

                          Originally posted by B. de Corbin View Post
                          Thjoth, when you put the blade in the vice, what do you use to protect it from the jaws? The paper towel trick won't work if you clamp hard enough to hold the blade while you are hammering. Do wooden blocks work?

                          I knew the trick about making the slot just a tiny bit too small, but I never thought about staking it in - the would really hold the guard in there nicely.
                          Wooden blocks should work, theoretically. The guy that taught me the trick had some old rubber pads that he'd cut out of an old pickup truck bed liner that he used, and that kept the blade from getting all marred up. The few times I've rehandled blades, I've used a similar piece of rubber padding, although mine came from the rubber floor mat that lines the bottom of a horse stall. That seems to be the best solution. Something else he did was stick another wooden block under the point of the knife as it stuck through the vice, so if it did slip, it would drive into the wood and hopefully stop there so that it wouldn't slam into anything that might break the point. With blades that have as many hours as he puts into them, a broken point REALLY sucks, so he does all he can to keep that from happening.
                          "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others."
                          -Thomas Jefferson

                          Let a man never stir on his road a step
                          without his weapons of war;
                          for unsure is the knowing when the need shall arise
                          of a spear on the way without.
                          -

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: Make your own Athame

                            I have some rubber mat used to hold boards in place while I sand or route them - a little chunk of that would work perfectly. I have a rondel dagger in the works, and I want to peen the end, but I've been worrying that I won't be able to hold it securely enough in the vice. The matting and some thin hardwood blocks ought to do it.

                            That's a good tip on protecting the tip - I dropped a blade once and it was a royal pain refiling the tip configuration... it was already in the handle, so I couldn't just get a new blade.
                            Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Re: Make your own Athame

                              Oh, but I've enjoyed this thread! I might never make one myself, but I've really enjoyed - and appreciated - seeing how it can be done! Absolutely wonderful!
                              www.thewolfenhowlepress.com


                              Phantom Turnips never die.... they just get stewed occasionally....

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