I’m considering teaching a class on making a knife from a Rockler or Woodcraft kit.
https://www.rockler.com/drop-point-knife-kit
The knives are on sale at Rocker right now, but the sale ends tomorrow.
The class would require you to purchase a kit and your scales. You can make your own scales, too from almost any wood. You can also use micarta. Or you can make them from acrylic or other materials like Corian. I’ve used a number of these materials. My suggestion is to start with wood.
I’ve taught the class at Rockler when I worked there. The Rockler kits are straight forward to make and assemble. The primary skills needed are the band saw, drill press and sander qualifications.
Here are a couple of videos describing the process:
The knife blade isn’t custom made but the rest of the knife would be. You could also modify the blade if you were so inclined but I think the blades are pretty nice as they are. You could also laser the scales or inlay them if you desired, but that will not be covered in the class.
You can make some beautiful knives this way. The class can easily be taught in a three hour period. A lot depends on class size, tool availability and functionality and scale making requirements as an example.
It could also depend upon whether need to resaw a larger blank, etc but generally speaking it is not difficult at all. Frankly, the most difficult part can be peening the pins. It is easy to crack the scale if you peen to hard.
Is anyone interested in such a class. You would obviously have to be qualified to use the tools in wood shop as a prerequisite.