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Spartanwarrior

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All the time I see drawings and designs of knives that are really good but mine always seem to suck and I want to know how people just freehand an awesome design in like a second in have a bunch of fancy art tools and stuff but I still get mediocre or just plain bad results any help would be greatly appreciated -calvin
 
Here is an easy way. Find a knife that you like. Make the length on a piece of paper. Now draw that knife on your paper betw3een the lines. No, it will not end up being a copy, maybe you wish, but perhaps close enough to make you happy. That's the easy part, but should get you started. Frank
 
I have the same problem warrior. I cant draw a straight line, a circle, hell I cant even draw a good squiggly line. I do as the above said. it gets me close then I adjust when actually cutting and grinding the profile.
 
Use a pad of tracing paper. Draw the knife you want the best you can on the top sheet. Then tear it off and place it underneath the next sheath. Adjust the lines or proportions as needed and repeat as necessary.
 
I think Spartanwarrior was really asking how people get the ideas that become the drawings on paper. Frank pretty much nailed it. Look at knives. Get a sense for what you like. Get a sense for what works. Then start drawing that.

I think where most new knife makers go astray is trying to draw stuff that is "awesome" and "totally original". I'm as guilty as the next guy of that. The best designs are not too, too far removed from the ones most makers are already using.

If all you want is "awesome" paper designs, take an art class at the local community college. If you want great knife designs, follow Frank's advice.
 
I'm not saying my first drawings (recently posted) are good designs - but what I did was saw a knife that I liked then tried to draw a copy of it. Once I had something similar I started playing around with tweaking it. At first that meant taking out elements that I thought would be too difficult for a first build, then just tweaks based on what I liked or wanted the knife to do.
 
If you're asking how to actually draw the knife, then do it by looking at and drawing the individual curves. Then blend them all together using your wrist to make the movements. It is much easier to draw something if you break it down into the individual pieces/shapes. Try placing your model upside down and drawing it upside down. It will force your brain into seeing the shapes instead of the whole object.
 
I use a student version of autocad. Takes the talent aspect right out of drawing. There are tons of free open source cad software out there that are very easy to use. This is an esee inspired design. I also print onto card stock which gives me a nice thick ready to cut out and use template.

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Here is what I do, might not be the best way but it works for me, and might help you.

All I use is a pad of 1/4" graph paper, tracing paper, a flexible curve, a ruler, and engineering pens (not needed but nice for tracing and getting the edges straight when tracing around the curve or ruler)

1. I draw out the design, make notes, and kind of get an idea of what I want, bevels, handle, pins, etc, on the graph paper:
212c0pk.jpg


2. Once I am done with the drawing and happy I trace it out on tracing paper(just the outside design):
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3. Once the trace is done I cut it out and glue it to cardboard and cut the cardboard to get a feel of the design, I use this spray glue from 3M:
vxhs89.jpg


Once I am happy with the feel I dykem the steel and use a scribe pen to transfer it to the steel (sorry I do not have pictures of these, the steel and everything is at my shop). This way I have the initial drawing, and a cut out for future use if I plan to make the knife again or I mess up. Hope this helps, I know it is not the only way to do it, and maybe not even the best but it works for me and may give you some ideas
 
Spending some time looking at and using knives helps. I've used all manner of knives extensively for about three times longer than you've been alive. That aside, I draw my knives in Adobe Illustrator. I prefer not to be looking at other knives when I design because I want the design to be my own. I have a idea of what I'm going for and then start putting lines down with the pen tool. I create nodes at every point in the drawing that I feel I will need to adjust the contour. When I first complete the outline of the blade, it often doesn't even look like a knife. I then start refining the curves and adjusting the position of the nodes until I arrive at what I want. I've got a lot of experience in CAD and I find this method of knife design much more spontaneous than using CAD or drawing by hand. One of the really nice things about designing in Illustrator is that you can export as a CAD file and have your design cut on waterjet, laser or EDM. Adobe Illustrator is not the only vector based drawing program either; there are cheaper (possibly free) alternatives out there.

Bob


Illustrator Screen Shot by Ranger_Bob, on Flickr
 
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Calvin, there is a big difference between drawing as an art and technical drawing.

I actually have a degree in AutoCAD, and the first semester he drew on a drafting table so we learned the inner workings and fundamentals of how Computer Aided Drafting works. Every drawing of a mechanical nature is simply a set of lines and arcs, and nothing more. By using a straight edge and protractor, you can draw anything you want - the trick is figuring out how to place the lines and arcs in the right spot. With a line the easiest way is with 2 points. There is only one line that can cross 2 distinct points. With an arc, the easiest way is to know the radius and center point. The only problem with drawing knives freehand is that the arcs in a knife design and very very large (old time knifemakers made hollow grinds with wheels that were several feet in diameter), so a 6" protractor will not let you use such a method.


A better way to draw such designs with a minimal amount of tools (since your tolerances do not need to be exact and even dimensions are not a concern) is to use a triangle and a french curve. Theoretically, you can generate any radius arc you want with a french curve, at least any radius you would want on an A sized drawing (which roughly translates to most 1:1 scale knife drawings).

French Curve

The%2BFrench%2BCurve.jpg
 
Would recommend getting one of the flexible curve drawing aids. With a pencil and string, you can also layout some 24" and 36" arcs(willhelp judging overall shape of knife.

OT
 
If you have access to Adobe Photoshop - this is a great how-to tutorial on drawing straight and curved lines. http://www.agavegroup.com/?p=68 Very simple and easy to do. This is what I use to draw my designs. I also freehand with a marker sometimes, too. One nice thing in photoshop is that I can draw things to scale using ruler guides and I have granular control over each line down to a pixel.
 
Here are the drawing aids I use.

knifedrawingtools_zps07f3bb32.jpg


I don't draw anything freehand, I just find the shape I'm looking for and trace it onto the paper a piece at a time. Spine, then point and belly, edge... I try to incorporate things I like by others into my drawings. The 3/16" wooden dowels are great to set a bend into for use drawing the spine or gentle handle contours. I almost never use the flexible curve, instead the dowels, large french curve, and the plastic cup cover most needs. The plastic cup can be squeezed and orientated in such a way to make a nice point and belly. The coins provide nice constant radii. I am trying to narrow down to three or so coins that I can match up to small wheels on a future 2x72. I mostly use the dollar, half dollar, 10 pesos, and the nickel sometimes the dime. The plastic drill guide is great for drawing the placement of pins and tubes to scale. Big graph paper was kind of hard to find locally until I went to Office Depot. I like the 11"x17" size pad with a 4x4 grid pattern. Hope this helps some.
 
I have free hand sketched my very few knives. I draw what I like and sometimes it translates into a knife that I like but I keep almost all of my sketches, complete or not. I have some where I like the whole thing and others where I only like certain aspects. Graph paper helps to keep proportion. As far as design, I have looked at hundreds of peoples' knives. When I see a knife I like, I try to figure out why I like that knife. Often it comes down to proportion and flow.
 
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