All About Pocket Knives

How is the best way to put a nail nick in a slip joint knife blade

Welcome to the forums GA Red & Happy Thanks Giving.

If it were me I would use a dovetail cutter for a standard nail nick or a keyway cutter for a long pull.

Edit to include pics of what I'm talking about.

First pic is dovetail cutter and second is keyway.

Hi - I've been wondering this too ... I love to modify blades & often times I don't because I have to cut a nail nick on the opposite side (i.e. making the long spey blade on a Case trapper into a sheepsfoot requires cutting a nail nick on the opposite side). I've tried it with a small dremel abrasive wheel chucked up in a drill press & it's very difficult to get it even reasonably decent. I'd love to be able to cut a crescent shaped nail nick. Just curious if anyone could offer some advice to those of us who don't have a milling machine or arbor press at the ready, but do have basic shop stationary tools ... thanks.

I do not have a milling machine, so I use my drill press. I chuck a Dremel cut off wheel, fix my blade in a vise, then slide the vise across the drill press table to cut the nick.

Master Bladesmith Steve Culver has a great tutorial on this if you google it. He uses a modified Dremel stone. I haven’t been around here long enough to know the consensus on posting links to other sites.
Don’t know why this pics is sideways. It is upright on my phone.

I have made a couple of new blades for knives with broken ones, and I used a Dremel tool with a narrow cut off wheel to do this. I clamp a piece of scrap steel to the blade as a guide and run the wheel against it to keep it straight. Picture of finished blade below. This is for making the long pull as used on most cattle knives.

much appreciated fellas ... I think the secret to the dremel wheel in a drill press method must be to clamp the blade in a vice rather than freehanding it like I have tried. Thanks - I will definitely take the time to jig it up in a vice next time. Many thanks

I have done just about every way named here an shown but what i found to work best for me is a 3/4 in 30 deg dovetail cutter ,while the blade is still un ground except to shape turn it up-side down put it in the vice about .100 thou below the top (upside down ) set the cutter .010 thou above the vise on slow speed mark where your table is or set the dial on milling machine an go as long as you want the nick an stop an make where it is by dial or placement on table an dont go past your lines take .005 thou cuts at a time inward when i get to .075 depth i make a final pass goint just past the line on ea end , here is a pic of the results doing it like that