HIDI (How I Do It) part 1 of making a Loveless pattern knife

I have been trying to take pictures/document how I currently make a Loveless pattern knife; Here is the start to making a Utility Hunter, Chute, Mini-Wilderness, and three different versions of the Stiffhorn. Enjoy!

A pile o' patterns. I firmly believe that if you want to make the same knife a second or 56th time that you cannot do it without a good pattern.  All of my original designs get transferred to .25" steel.  I have a number of Loveless patterns that are steel to steel (not steel/paper/steel) patterns straight from the Loveless shop.

 Clamp and scribe onto your steel of choice. In this case the Hunter and Fighters are out of CPM154; the Stiffhorns are 154CM.

 Weapon of choice for profiling a blade blank (Vintage Powermatic steel cutting band-saw).  Saves on abrasive belts. Water jet would be nice but I don't do enough quantity.

 Cut out on the band saw and almost ground to shape. You can barely see the scribed line; when profiling a blade blank I try to split the scribed outline getting as close to actual size as possible.

 Finished profiling the blank but you can see that the shoulders and guard notches don't yet exist, so off to the mill to true everything up and mill the notches.

All six with milled guard notches and drilled for handle fasteners and lanyard tubes.

The first steps aren't very exciting but they are the foundation for the finished knife. I try make everything as precise as possible. The next entry will be tapering the tangs.