It's time to start making something. I am going to design a slip-joint folder. A folder pattern will allow me to show some more features in Draw.

Using Draw, I can design a slip-joint folder in about 15 minutes. This does not include the time that I spend staring at the screen and trying to decide what I want the knife to look like; but is the amount of time actually spent manipulating the pattern on the screen.

I almost always start a blade design by using the Rectangle Tool. This allows me to choose the dimensions for the height and length of the blade. I have selected the Rectangle Tool and created a rectangle that is 2 12" by 1/2".

At this point, I will introduce the "Snap To" feature. Using Snap To allows you to automatically align objects with points on the grid and/or to other objects. Rather than go through a lengthy explanation here of how snapping works, I suggest that you read about it in Draw's Help menu.

The Snap To controls can be found in the View drop down Menu, I have set the properties to "Snap to Grid" and also "Snap to Objects". Dragging the rectangle to a place on the sheet where I want the blade to be, it has Snapped to a position on the Grid.

In the image below, I have clicked on the Arrange Menu and selected Convert To Curves. Selected the Shape Tool from the Toolbox. Then, double-clicked on the lower left Node to delete it.

I have clicked on the remaining left Node to select it and then on the Node Toolbox I selected the Convert Line to Curve icon. This gives the Node Control Handles.

I have now used the Control Handles on the left Node and the lower right Node to begin shaping of the blade edge.

I double clicked on the line that forms the blade spine to add a Node and pushed the node up to the Grid. I now have the start to a nice clip-point blade shape.

I usually make the tang for a folder blade 2/3 of the height of the blade. Our blade is 1/2" tall, so 2/3 of .5" is .333". I have selected the Rectangle Tool and created a rectangle that is .333" x .333".

Using the Pick Tool, I moved the small rectangle to the end of the blade shape where it snapped into position (Snap to Object function).

On the Toolbar, I have selected the Basic Shapes icon and then selected Flowchart Shapes. This opens a Toolbar (green circle)where you can choose from different available shapes. I selected the shape of a circle with cross-hairs inside it. This shape is great for locating holes to be drilled. The cross-hairs help with aligning a center punch.

Dragging the cursor on the sheet will create the circle shape. I then typed into the Size Box the dimensions for a 1/8" circle. This is the size of the pivot pin that would be used on this knife.

Using the Pick Tool the circle is dragged to the middle of the small rectangle where it will Snap to the center of the rectangle. You will see the word "center" appear when you drag an object to the center of another object.

To add the kick to the blade, I used the Triangle Shape tool. Make a triangle, rotate it around to the correct position, drag the control handles to size it about right and then snap it to the bottom of the blade.

Now, it is time to turn all of these separate objects into one object. So, I will Group them to create one object. The Pick Tool is used to drag a Selection marquee around the blade. This will select all of the objects that make up the blade. Then, the Arrange Menu is opened and Group is selected.

Double click on the blade with the Pick Tool and put in Rotate mode. In the center of the blade is a small circle with a dot inside of it. This is the center of rotation for the blade shape.

Moving the Pick Tool, over the Rotation center, the cursor will turn to a cross-hair shape. Hold down the left mouse button and the Rotation Center can be dragged to a new position. I have dragged the Rotation Center to the middle of the blade tang, where it will automatically align with the center of the Circle with Cross-hairs. You will see the small word "center" appear when you have the Rotation Center positioned correctly.

Clicking twice on the blade again, the Rotation Handles will appear. The Rotation Handles can be used to rotate the blade shape, pivoting on the new rotation point in the center of the tang. Or, you can type a rotation amount in the Angle of Rotation window.

I use a duplicate of the folder blade to facilitate designing the knife. After selecting the blade shape, go to the Edit menu and select Duplicate. This will create an exact duplicate of the blade.

This has nothing to do with designing a folder, but is something that you should know about. The first time that you use some of the features in Draw, like the Duplicate function, a window will pop up asking you to specify the location where the duplicate will be placed on the sheet, relative to the position of the original object. What you type in this window is not important. If you type in 0 and 0, it will place the duplicate exactly over the original. The next time that you use this feature, Draw will use your previous settings as the default location for duplicates. You will not see the pop up window appear. You can change any of the settings later by going to the Tools menu and selecting Options. There is a whole slew of settings available in Options where you can specify how features function.

You need the duplicate blade placed exactly over the original blade. If your duplicate function did not do this. Either drag the duplicate into position, or check the location of the original blade shape, then type in this same location for the duplicate blade.

Double click on the duplicate blade to display the Rotation Handles and the duplicate blade can be rotated to a new position, pivoting on the same rotation center as the original blade. With the duplicate blade in this position, you can use it for designing the knife handle.

To design the handle, I use the Pen Tool to create an enclosed object. The Pen Tool creates Curve Lines, so there is no need to use the Arrange Menu to convert the lines to Curves.

Start by clicking on the blade spine about 1/16" in front of the spring notch, to add a node there. Click again near the bottom of the blade. Place another node past the end of the rotated blade and then click again on top of the first node to make an enclosed object. The exact placement of these four nodes is not important, as they can and will be moved later.

Using the Shape Tool, click on the top left node and then select the Convert Line To Curves icon on the toolbar. This will turn on the control handles for shaping.

Use the Shape Tool to select each of the nodes and convert the lines to curves.

Use the control handles to begin shaping your handle design. You can also use the Shape Tool to drag the nodes to different locations. Rotate the duplicate blade into and out of the handle shape as needed to design the handle and make the knife look as you want.

You can add a node anywhere you like by double-clicking on the line with the Shape Tool.

Well, as Steve knows, I know less about making a knife than my poodle does.

However, I've used Google's SketchUp as well as Illustrator (yes, huge learning curve but so worth it especially if you also use photoshop), Aurodesk Sketchbook, and AutoCAD (not for the non-professional and the not-rich, but amazing) for designing and laying out woodwork for years. The Google program works well, is free, and I was happy with it. The advantage of Autodesk is you can draw on a tablet and then import it into something else if you want to and it's simple. Illustrator can be anightmare so get one of the training classes on CD if you are going to use it. However we use it for technical publications and it's very powerful.

For most woodcarving, furniture making, etc. I still use the Google program as there is a large community of woodworkers who adopted it. Ton if info on the Fine Woodworking site on it (mostly in the blogs and forums...)

Great tutorial, Steve, wish I had one like that when I started Illustrator.... I cussed a lot and spend a lot of time on the phone with tech support.

Kevin

Kevin,

Thanks for posting up this information. I have no experience with anything but Draw, so I can't offer recommendations for other software.

Draw is also compatible with using a tablets. I've got a Bamboo tablet, but really do not use it much. I can do pretty much anything that I want using the mouse.

Draw has some really good tutorials. But, they cover a lot of stuff that is not necessary for knife designing. By the time that I got through a tutorial, I couldn't remember the parts that would be useful to me. Most of what I have learned about using Draw is from just working with it and looking at the Help Menu. Still, I've spent a lot of hours frustrated because I couldn't remember how to do something that I had done before. I hope that this tutorial thread will be simple enough that it will teach readers the steps necessary for designing knives.

I intend to keep adding to this thread for a long time. I have learned so much about using Draw that I could probably keep posting to this thread for a year. I've got some really cool things to show.

I'll get back to the folder design soon. The next step is designing the spring.

Time to add the spring.

With the Pick Tool, select the main blade (not the rotated copy). This will direct the Pen Tool to snap the spring's line to the Nodes on the blade.

Using the Pen Tool, move the cursor to the Node at the top of the blade's spring notch, at the spine. When the work "node' appears, click there. Move the cursor straight down to the bottom of the spring notch and click when aligned with the Node at the corner of the notch. Move the cursor to the right, to a point past the blade's kick. Hold the Shift Key to force the line to be straight and click there. Move the Cursor to a point on the blade handle, just past the point of the rotated blade and double-click to end the line. I have changed the color of the spring's line to red, so it is easier to see in this conglomeration of lines.

Using the Shape Tool, click the Node at the end of the spring line, then convert this line to a curve line by clicking the Convert Line to Curve icon on the tool bar.

Then, shape the spring as you wish.

More Nodes can be added and used to define the shape of the spring.

From the Flowchart Shapes menu, select the circle with crosshairs and size it to whatever size pins that will be used in the handle of the knife. Drag the shape to position on the knife pattern.

An easy way to make duplicates is to use a short-cut key. With the circle-crosshair selected, hold down the "control" key and hit the "D" key on the keyboard to create a duplicate.

Make duplicates of the circle-crosshair as you need and drag them into position.

Make another circle-crosshair and size it to the pivot pin diameter. Drag it to snap into position at the blade's pivot point.

Use the Pick Tool to drag a selection marquee around the handle area. Use the Control + D keys to create a duplicate of the handle.

Click on a blank area of the sheet to deselect the duplicated handle. Use the Pick Tool to select the blade in the duplicated handle, then delete it.

Drag a selection marquee around the duplicated handle and make another duplicate of it.

On one of the duplicate handles, use the Pick Tool to select the spring line and delete it. Here is your liner pattern. Sorry, I messed up the images. The top shape is the liner pattern.

On the other duplicate, delete the circle-crosshair for the blade pivot. This duplicate will become the spring pattern.

Using the Pick tool, hold down the Shift key and click on the handle and spring shapes to select them; but not the circle-crosshairs. On the Arrange pull down menu, select Combine. Then select Arrange- Weld. This will change the two shapes into a single object (combine) with Nodes at their intersections (welded).

Using the Shape tool, select the Node at the intersection of the handle and spring bottom. Click the Break Curve icon ,on the tool bar. Zoom in and find the Node that is at the end of the handle's bottom line, running towards the front of the knife. There will be three arrows there. One of them is the Node that you are looking for.

Double click on this Node to delete it, along with the line segment.

Continue deleting Nodes and line segments until you reach the front of the spring.

Here's your spring pattern.

Make a duplicate of the handle shape and add lines for bolsters. Make a duplicate of your blade. Here is all of the patterns that you need to build this knife.

I get emails from Buy.com and saw this sale ($219) on Corel Draw.

http://www.buy.com/prod/coreldraw-graphics-suite-x5-full-version/214550686.html?listingid=115026464

WEll, that beats the crap out of my etch-a-sketch

WEll, that beats the crap out of my etch-a-sketch

I never could get my Etch-a Sketch to network with my printer. <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//laugh.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':lol:' />

I need to get back to this thread and add more to it. There is still a lot of stuff I want to demonstrate. Just a little busy right now finishing knives for the AKA Show.

Time to add some more to this thread. More details can be added to this drawing. I'll get into colorizing the drawings for sending to a knife customer.

Use the Pen tool to add a line for a false edge.

Use the Shape Tool to convert the line to a curve and then pull the line down with the Shape Tool to create the false edge.

Use the Ellipse Tool to make a flattened hemisphere for a nail nick. Creating a portion of a circle is done by using the Pie Shape controls on the toolbar (red circle).

The nail nick can be filled in with color by using the Smart Fill Tool (red arrow). The Smart Fill Tool will fill any area that is completely enclosed. Click inside the nail nick to fill it with black.

Using the Fill Tool (red arrow), choose Fountain Fill. On the Fountain Fill Menu, you can choose the type of fill pattern, the colors that will be used to create the fill and the amount of the fill colors that will be applied. In the small square window at the top right of this menu, there should be a cross-hairs (but, not seen in this image). You can move the cross-hairs to change the direction of the fill colors. After making your choices on this menu, click on the knife blade to color it.

Going back to the Smart Fill Tool, use the pull-down color chart to select a darker shade of gray.

Click inside the false edge to color it.

Using the Smart Fill Tool, add color to the bolster areas.

Click on one of the bolsters and then use the Fountain Full to change the solid color to a fountain fill. Also do the other bolster with a fountain fill.

In the next post, I will show how to create a pattern fill from a photograph. I will use the handle material from a photo of another knife to fill the handle area of this folder.

You can create a Pattern Fill from a photograph to fill areas of a drawing. One way to do this is to import an image into your drawing. Using the File drop-down menu, select Import.

This will bring up a menu for you to select the image that you wish to import.

Click on the screen and drag the cursor to import the image and size it to approximately the size of the handle in the folder drawing. Using my photo editing software, I have created an image from the jig bone handle of a folder that I had previously built

Click on the Tools menu, Create, then click Pattern Fill. A pop-up menu will appear; click Full Color.

A cross-hair will appear on the screen, drag the cross-hairs to create a marquee around the image.

A pop-up window will appear; click OK. This will cause another pop-up window to appear, where you will name the new pattern fill and save it in the Patterns Folder.

Use the Pick Tool to select your drawing. Then, select the Interactive Fill Tool (red arrow).

On the Tool Bar (red circle), select Full Color Pattern. Find your new Pattern Fill in the drop-down menu and select it.

Your Pattern Fill will be added to the drawing. It is applied with control handles to adjust the size and angle of the Pattern on the drawing. Adjust the Pattern Fill until it looks good.

Use the Pick Tool to drag a marquee around the drawing and Group the elements together.

Drag your blade into position with the handle. I have filled the blade with a ladder pattern damascus Fill.

If when you drag your blade into position you have this issue where it is placed on top of the handle, you will need to change the order of the drawings on the page.

With the blade drawing selected, pull down the Arrange menu, select Order, then To Back of Page. This will move the blade drawing behind the handle drawing.

You can turn this colorized drawing, or anything that you create in Draw, into a PDF file. A PDF file is a good format to use to send your images to a customer. Almost everyone can open a PDF file and a PDF file is small, so it emails easily. Go to the File menu, select Publish to PDF.

This will display a menu for you to name your PDF file and select the folder where you wish it to be stored.