I have just created something to be proud of! It looks great! Feels great... It IS great because I created it! The tools that come with the knife kit are all you need,...that and some patience. I bought three kits, one for each of my sons and one for me the minute they got them they immediately called me to say it's the coolest gift ever....I agree! I was the first to finish, I'm looking forward to see how theirs come out and all of us sitting around eating meat, and doing manly stuff. I'm going to get another and hang it in the other side of my hip, how cool is that!!!

Purchased this item for my husbands birthday. Paid the extra to have the duck tape wrapping which is an inside joke for us. Needless to say it was packaged properly and everything was included. Took us a while to find the wood stain as it is a tiny package but all in all it is well worth the money. I like the fact that he now carries around a knife that he made personally and he wears it with pride daily. Great gift!

Surprised my boyfriend with this kit just because! As soon as he opened it he wanted to start on the project! He completed the whole thing in about 9 hours! He said it was actually really fun and cool to make the knife by himself! He's very proud of the knife and it turned out awesome!

I gave my girlfriend an engagement ring for an early Valentines Day gift, and she reciprocated with this kit. Clearly I won out on this trade, not to mention chose wisely. I have had it now for 18 hours and am getting ready to stain my handle. I couldn't feel prouder to have crafted this knife with my own hands. Cant wait for my next project!!! My only request would be that ManCrates offer a re-up kit with another blade, handle and bolster kit, or at least offer a link where I could purchase them to start on my second knife.

My husband has always wanted to make his own knife, this was the perfect kit to get him started, he did an amazing job on it and even branded our last name into the handle, it's a knife that I feel will become a family keepsake, pass it down to our son and so on. All our kids watched the process and thought it was so cool to see dad make this from scratch. My husband is usually quite hard to shop for, but every Christmas and every birthday I get him a man crate, we are Canadian and even with the exchange and shipping it's worth it to give him a unique gift that he really enjoys!!!

I gave this to my dad for Christmas and he LOVED it. He wanted to start working on it immediately. He obsessively worked on it until he finished in less than three days. My dad had always wanted to get into knife making but did not know where to start and this kit was perfect for him! The tools in the kit are a good quality that will help him in future projects. It was his favorite gift this year.

This kit kept going out of stock, so I immediately jumped on the chance when it (shortly) became available. I gave this to my boyfriend as a Christmas gift, and he LOVED it. It's been less than a week, and he's already almost finished with it. Consider buying this if you or your giftee likes unique, interactive presents.

my daughter & SIL sent me this for Christmas. i've never written a review before. it's been great since tearing open the massively duct taped box. it's been three days and i look forward to working on it every day; a glass of wine, a nice cigar, some filing and epoxying. going on a roadtrip soon and will be sanding by the campfires. my camping pals are going to be awed!

Loved the kit. The tools were first-rate and the brass bolsters and mosaic pins were #1 quality.

The only thing that I would recommend is to have a larger tang on the blade. The current one is about an inch to an inch-and-a- half too short for man hands.

I had to fill the space behind the tang with thinner wood and carve out the bangle to be a bit longer. That also helped with balancing the weight of the blade.

An extra inch to 1.5 on the range would allow the handle to more comfortably fit more people and allow for a better balanced knife

I liked making this knife. Why do you still show a picture of a can of wood stainer when you only supply a tiny one time use pouch? Aside from that and some really vague instructions, I got it done and it was fun.

I'm a little disappointed the Knife Making kit didn't come in a crate :( That's partly why I ordered the gift in the first place haha but you just need to pay attention on which gifts actually come in the crate. Other than that, I think my husband will still like present.

Very, very nice idea. Received one for Christmas. As a fairly experienced woodworker, with plenty of available tools to hand, I was not inclined to use just the files included in the Crate and found a coping saw and Dremel very effective in roughing the wood to size.

I am very pleased with the result and still have to shape the sheath. The vise is nicely made, but the one hex screw that I really needed to tighten was inaccessible; this resulted in the vise being too wobbly for comfort.

Two or three layers of masking tape on the blade is essential during construction...

Altogether a very nice project

I bought this knife making kit for my husband for Christmas. He loves it but 2 suggestions (why I did 4 out of 5. The actual kit is 5 out of 5) - first don't waste your money on the duct tape bc they ship it that way & the flimsy cardboard box got wet when delivered so I had to transfer kit into another box. And 1 layer of duct tape just isn't worth $10. I could have bought 3 or 4 rolls of duct tape & coated the box in layers myself for that cost. 2nd please start doing all of these in the crates versus flimsy cardboard. One of the most fun things about man crates is getting the crate & opening it. As stated the kit is totally 5 stars only picked 4 bc of the 2 suggestions I made. I will be back for more gifts!!!

I live what comes in the kit and I think my dad with love it but for the price and the fun it came in a crate. I was expecting it to come in a crate when I bought it but after receiving it it was just in a box. It’s misleading to me to have a product ona site that sells gift sets in crates and not have them all in a crate. Maybe have a more clear picture or label at the top saying non crate gifts

Bought this as a gift. Have purchased many mancrates. The box it comes in is pretty disappointing as opening a mancrate is half the fun. Box comes with shipping labels and post office notes written all over it. Kind of takes away from the experience. Other than that ... AWESOME!

Fun to put together, if tedious with hand tools. I have a tip for those that find the sheath too loose. After wetting the leather, put the top half of the long edge without stitching in the vise and clamp tightly for an hour. Then, carefully align and put the bottom half in the vise. You will end up with a tight fit that holds the blade well and a crosshatch line that looks like you tooled the leather. Finish with neatsfoot oil or another leather conditioner after it dries completely.

My wife bought me this kit for our anniversary because I have mentioned wanting to get into knife making (or at least try it) before. This kit was by far the best gift she has gotten me. Here are my thoughts on what I liked and what could be improved upon... The kit does come with everything you need to make your own knife. I literally do not own any of the tools needed so this by itself is great. However, the top part of the bench vise started to become loose within less than an hour of use. This made the project more difficult. I also think more in-depth instructions or a tutorial video could be helpful for people who do not have any experience using epoxy, rasps/files, etc... I wanted my knife to have a darker handle similar to what was pictured but it ended up being a lot lighter. One more sheet of the roughest sand paper would've been nice too. Ultimately, I loved making my knife and receiving this kit as a gift from my wife. I am just providing this honest feedback in hopes that it will improve the knife kit receiver experience.

My wife gave me this for Father's Day, and, no, im not her father. She just likes to have an occasion to give me nice things that she knows that I'll like.

The kit has everything needed to build a first-quality knife. The only not-included thing I needed was a drill motor, and I opted to use a sanding block to finish the handle.

Although I have a bench vise, the included one was useful, and good quality. I could leave my existing vice in place on the other side of the workbench and mount the included one, that has a bench clamp, in a convenient place. The included files are good quality (Great Neck), and two of them wasn't in my current inventory.

In addition to various grades of sandpaper, the wood rasp is most helpful in quickly removing the excess handle stock.

The instructions are succinct, and humorous. I liked the "Whia, cowboy!", when the blade sizing step was presented. You need to have some basic knowledge of the use of basic tools, but not too much. I thought the instructions about the bolsters made the work seem overly difficult, but it really wasn't. Or, I didn't do all that was described, but I'm happy with the result.

One suggestion is that the knife-builder employ all the patience that can be had, when shaping the handle material. Allow plenty of time for the shaping, there's a lot of material to remove, and, to do it right, the tang and wood need to bee perfectly flush. I ran out of the medium grit sandpaper while bringing the wood to the tang. The kit could have included one more sheet.

Was very excited that from the time of order to the arrival of this project kit from Man Crates, was in a blink of an eye. Pleasant surprise because I'd been waiting for this to return back into stock for about 2 months. Woohoo!
I ordered 3, one for my father, one for the father in-law and of course one for myself. Booya!
As someone that uses hand tools on a daily basis, I was a little shocked to find that when my kit arrived the tools that were shown on-line and again displayed in the literature included was that the hand tools (and vise) were that of GreatNeck and NOT the MIT-Tekton tools being advertised (visually). :( This would of typically warranted an auto 3 star rating, but the kit is seriously awesome and fun, so a solid 4.
It must also be noted that the wood handles are not Burl Maple, but is actually Curly Maple for those who know the difference. Regardless, the kit is complete and will warrant several additional knives once the original blade has been finished. Highly recommended.

Buy a Dremel to go with it. Shaping half inch slabs of wood with a hand file takes forever. A fun project but gets tedious.

Recieved as a gift. It is a fun craft, but isn't really a "knife making" kit. The blade is fully shaped and sharpened, you just assemble the handle. If are looking for an all inclusive kit, it does have all the basics to put together a nice looking knife, but otherwise is overpriced. A comparable kit could be pieced together for maybe a third or half the price.

I purchased the knife making kit for my son-in-law for Christmas. I had read that it came in a fancy card board box. Well it was not! The mailing address label was stuck on the box. The box was the mailing box, so it was scuffed up. Things were tossed around inside. It would be a much nicer gift it it was sent in a small crate, not a normal mailing box. Especially for the cost of it!

The vice that came in our kit doesn't work properly. It doesn't stay tight and falls over. It frustrates my husband not being able to hold the knife in place to file.

I hope you hired a new machinist!! In my kit, the pins did NOT fit the bolsters or line up with the "tang"!! It is good to have a complete drill index and a drill press to clean up the misfits. It seems like a nice project for about 60 hrs. the almost great review is because of the misfits and the crappy cardboard box you ship in.

This isn't a knife making kit, it's simply a knife handle making kit. The blade comes already shaped and sharpened. Just not as cool.