Mine is kind of a straight up and down guillotine style one. If I was going to do it again, I'd make a more "C" shaped one so it's more versatile. With mine, I can't do anything lengthwise, only perpendicular to it.

It accepts 1/2 x 2 inch dies. The most useful tool on it that I found for knife making is a die with a flat shelf on the bottom, like say 2x4", and a top with a radiused or square edge depending on the effect you want. This will let you do set downs of the ricasso or pointer finger cut it on the handle without deforming the back very much. Then you can switch over to two square faced dies to do the hidden tang if that's your style. This was something that a local master smith showed me, and I like it a lot.

I will say that I find myself using it less and less though. It's terribly inefficient for drawing compared to the edge of the anvil, and I often think a traditional spring fuller would be easier to use for many situations because you have to manually pick the die up and place it by hand on every swing.

Thanks!

I have already built the body of the tool. What I'm trying to establish is what profile I should grind on the dies.

The tapering and drawing out of the tang will be done by hand, but creating the "drop off" between the ricasso and where the tang starts is where this tool will be used.

Would you use a narrow, "pointy" die (1), a rounded die (2) or one that is a little more angular (3)?

I don't have a proper edge on my anvil to do this otherwise I would not have decided on building the helper 🙂