I recently got to take a knife making class at a local maker-space. It was very cool class, with a great instructor. We got to play with a bunch of tools I initially didn't have experience with.
In the class we made a santoku style chef knife. This was my final product:
We started with knife blanks, and ground the blade using an angle grinder. On your first pass with the angle grinder, you basically make a 45 degree angle all down the blade. On each later pass, you try to smooth down each side of the blade, so it comes to a point in a nice convex shape:
Next up we throw the blade in a gas powered forge to heat treat it:
Once red hot, quench the blade by quickly throwing it in a bucket of oil (seen in square bucket below my instructor). This will harden the blade:
Once the blade has cooled some, it may have warped and bent while it was hot. So you can use a hammer and avil on it to adjust and re-balance the shape:
Finally, use a large wheel grinder to add a finish and polish to the blade. You can also some woodworking tools to cut a wooden handle. Drill a hole out of it, and round all of the edges (sorry I don't pictures from these steps). But here is my final product!
The knife is incredibly sharp. I'm very impressed. I admit I didn't do every step completely on my own. Everyone in the class needed some amount of hand-holding from our instructor. Nonetheless, I had a blast, and learned a lot. And I definitely have a much greater appreciation for metal work! Thanks for reading!