The Generic All-Purpose Homemade/Handmade Thread

I’ve been making things for a while now. It goes in fits and starts, and it’s a strange array (baby booties, bondage equipment, spoons, that sort of thing). Since Dopers tend to be a strange array, I’d expect that other folk hereabouts also do this or want to do it.

Most of the instructions I’ve found online or in books are written by people who know what they’re doing, but who also have either a technical base that assumes you’ll know how to tie a wall and crown knot or read a crochet pattern, or have all of the fun toys to do it properly. For example, all of the knifemaking tutorials I’ve found assume the existence of either a forge and anvil or a belt grinder. They’re very helpful with techniques for those, but not so much if you don’t have one to start with.

I propose a thread where we can help one another with getting a project done. It might be “handmade” (think of fine furniture with gorgeous inlays and not a single nail used in the construction), it might be “homemade” (think of a bicycle water bottle holder made out of coathangers and electrical tape), but at least it’d be done, and you’d have a format where you could go back and ask what they mean by “drill a hole in the wooden part, drill a hole in the metal part, put them together so they’re parallel, insert the bolt, tighten the nut, and cover by whipping in paracord (be sure to use a fid).”

I was going to start with my technique for making a man want to stay in a rather uncomfortable position using only a piece of rope (substitute handcuffs if you have no rope, leather wrist restraints are best), several coins, two paint stir sticks and two rubber bands, but sanity has reared its ugly head so I’ll just ask the first question.

Are there any knifemakers out there, and if so do you use a jig to grind your blades prior to heat treating?