How to make a Cardboard Pocket Knife

I'm going to teach you how to make a pocket knife out of cardboard. If done right and with the same shape as mine, it'll look like this. This is my first tutorial on this website so it might be confusing:

Things You'll Need

• Cardboard. (About as thin as those sticker covers from a sticker vending machine)
• Scissors
• Masking tape
• Two (2) toothpicks
• Razorblade
• pencil
• fine point marker (I used a sharpie)

Instructions

1. 

   Get your piece of cardboard and find the shape of the blade and handle that you want. I drew them on a piece of paper first and cut them out. Here's my shape and you could use it for starting or make one of your own:

2. 

   Trace the shape from the paper onto the cardboard but separate the blade from the handle and just add a little more to the blade on the bottom of it (this will be cut out later)(there should be two cut-outs of the handle):

3. 

   Cut the pieces out and make sure the handles are even. (It's ok if the handles are barely off)

4. 

   Put the blade on top of the handle in the way it would look when the blade is inside and not open. With your pencil draw a dot where the pivot of the blade would be. If it's good for you, re-draw it with the marker so it's more visible.

5. 

   With your Razorblade, cut out the hole:

6. 

   Put the blade in the same place from step four (4). With your pencil draw in the hole to mark where it's going to be in the handle. Cut out that hole and match that part of the handle with the other to mark where the hole on the other should be and cut that out.

7. 

   Match all of the holes together and out your toothpick through (the toothpick is the pivot).

8. 

   If you tried flicking the knife open and closed it, you might have realized that you can't take it out, so for your stop, take out one of the handles without taking the pivot out and put the blade into the position of step four (4):

9. 

   Now mark where ever you want the stop to be if you can't really see the mark, re-mark it so it's visible. Cut that mark with the razorblade. Match the handles and mark the other by putting the pencil in the hole. Cut that out. Right now they should look like this:

10. 

    Match the holes on the handles and blade together.(The blade should have one (1) hole and the blade should have two (2). Put the toothpicks into the holes:

11. 

    We're almost done. Close it as far as possible to the stop:

12. 

    Now you can cut the excess cardboard at the top. Open it slowly and at one point there will be more excess cardboard that you want to cut off.

13. 

    With the masking tape, tape the toothpicks to where the handle is by taping all around the toothpick. Tape to here:

14. 

    When you're all done with taping four sides, Cut each toothpicks side to about this big:

15. 

    Open the blade and tape all of the sides of the handle except the opening:

16. 

    Notice how I made strips for the round parts. (if your handle is a rectangle, you don't need stips):

17. 

    Put a strip over the toothpick area,too(in this picture, the blade is out a little too far so put a tape where you want to stop it. It's better to have 3 or so strips so if you put it back, it won't rip the tape):

18. 

    To cover everything when your done with the edges, get a big piece of the masking tape that's about as big as the handle:

19. Lay the tape flat on the handle without it touching the blade. Smooth it all out and try to not make any air bubbles (the only air bubbles you should have should be from the toothpicks)Cut along the edges(all)and your done.

20. 

    Here Is the Final Knife:

21. Now you're all done with your first(maybe) cardboard pocket knife. Keep practicing and maybe you'll be better than me.

    Right now, I'm trying to create a switchblade! I'll show that to you some other day.

Tips & Warnings

• For step 18 and 19, to make that easier, in the beginning when all of the pieces are cut out, Put the tape on. You could even cover the blade.

• For step #2, my picture has only one part of two for the handle. That's because it's easier to trace if the thing that your tracing is harder than paper so I traced it after cutting it out.

• For a better finish that's more realistic, tape the handle with black tape or spraypaint it black.

• While cutting the holes for the pivot and the stop with your razorblade, be careful not to poke yourself by poking through too fast or having the blade slide accidentally. (it explains the thumb.)