I've heard of people making their own knives out of spring steel.

Does anyone here do this?

What is all involved with this.

I have made a couple never used spring steel for mine (my brother has though) I used a chain saw bar that i cut to a rough shape of what I wanted then brought it closer to the final shape with a grinder. then before you can use a file on it you have to soften the steel, get it red hot and I think it was lye(can not remember its been 5 years since ive made one) was what we used to cool it with then you can file and sand it to the final shape. after you get it where you want it get it red hot again(we used propane torches, the heat has to be even. i think we had four heads in our rack) and quench it in oil to cool. then final sand and hit her with a buffer and make a handle.

there are a few how-tos out there. I've read old files make good starter stock. You have to soften them to make them workable, then re-heat treat when you're finished. I'd like to try it sometime.

If you want to make a "Wal Mart" quality knife to your own specs., then you shouldn't have much trouble getting started. However, IMO, you might as well just buy a medium quality pocket knife and refurnish it.

If you really want something special, you are going to need to study blades from proven master blade smiths. Fortunately, they are accessible through the internet.

A general word of advice. Don't go out and make yourself a blade out of junk metal laying around. You don't necessarily know what it's made of, how stable it is and perhaps how to heat treat it properly. Unless you want to spend a fortune and years in study for it, I would advise you leave the heat treating to others, and again, there are relatively affordable means out there for getting your work heat treated. I use these guys for both my guns and blades and they have never come short of impressive:

http://www.metalscience.com

I would use one of the metals that has shown a very high wear resistance on the chart on their website. D-2 and S-7 in particular are extremely tough metals, and you probably won't pay much more for that metal then you would for a set of thick files to make your blade out of. I am finishing up on an S-7 knife right now. It's fairly close to my Wootz/Damascus knife for combination of hardness, wear resistance and flexibility (though more in the hardness department then anything else.

Blade smithing is a never ending art and science with oceans of knowledge to be gained. Most people I know think I am a spectacular blade smith with unlimited knowledge yet I know good and well that I am nothing but a rookie hobbiest and a toddler to the art compared to other smiths who I know. In fact, I can hardly keep up with them when discussing metallurgy and heat treating.

My strongest advice in this respect is to focus on learning the machining techniques and importance of blade make-up, leaving the metallurgy and heat treating to the big boys. Otherwise, you will spend years studying the art before ever starting to get any head way. I think apprenticeship is usually a 15-20 year process.

If interested, I can introduce you to an expert swordsmith and one master swordsmith who I am sure would be happy to help you get started.