With the way life seems to be piling up turd burgers for my lunch lately, I made it a point today to just play with getting my knife closer to done and forget about everything for a while. Sanded the handles and oiled them. Did a final grind on the edge and took it to the stones and can shave my arm bare. Far from perfect but for my first knife I am happy. Started off as an old file I found in Grandma's garage when we bought the place and the handles are from a wind felled tree that turned out to be curly sugar maple that i scrounged from the tree dump.
Nice job Nothing like making something nice out of something old Burned up a chunk of curly silver maple just today
That is a thing of beauty and as mentioned should certainly be a family heirloom. I have a question that may be too involved to answer easily, so a reply telling me to go read a book is permissible. I know nothing about blacksmithing. The file is already hard. What is the process for turning a file into a cutting blade?
As stated, it was my first and I may possibly not use the correct terminology. Took old USA Nicholson file and lit up my fire pit with a good bed of coals and heated to non-magnetic and then left it in the coals/ash til morning so it was annealed. Now that it was"softened" I drilled the rivet holes and slowly worked with a grinder to shape it. Never let it get so hot that it can't be bare handed. Leave cutting edge thick. Once rough shaping is done, I refired the pit. Got it going good and heated back to non-magnetic and kept it there for a couple minutes. Let it air cool so it can be handled, then repeat. This helps take stresses out. Third heat to non-magnetic hold a couple minutes then dunk in a metal can filled with used motor oil, quench complete. A new file should skate across the knife and not cut in. It is very hard but brittle now. To find the happy medium place knife in 450 degree oven held on its spine by a scientific formulated couple of paper clips bent to make holders so the knife won't have a hot bottom side and a cold top side and warp. Hold at temp 1 hr, turn off stove and let set in closed oven to cool slowly. Do this again. Tempering is complete. Clean knife with rubbing alcohol. Epoxy handles and rivets on. Shape/sand handle and if wooden put 4 coats of mineral oil on leaving on an hour before wiping off for next coat. Carefully take belt sander to blade to put final grind on the bevel. Dunking in water to cool often. If it gets too warm to touch or on the edge turns blue or yellow you lost the temper. Take to sharpening stone & strop until you can shave. This is what I did, weather this was right I don't know but it is what I dun did.
Greenstick those are some nice instructions with easy to understand explanations. I really do like how you clarify the annealing and tempering processes. However my sophomoric mind isn't quite sure what you mean by getting it to a "non-magnetic" state. Is that as simple as heating it and using an extendable magnet to touch it and see if it 'grabs'?
You got it! Once steel gets to a dull cherry red, i can't remember the exact temperature, steel no longer will attract a magnet.
Greenstick Nice job on the knife! Those files have some good steel. The finish on the scales looks 3" deep. I cut a lot of signs and art out of saw blades with my plasma cutter and tried my hand at knife making out of the drop off metal. I use the same techniques you do. I don't forge but use the stock removal method. The metal is not as high carbon as your file mostly being tool steel alloys like L-6. Won't get as hard but is really tough. I mostly like making bush style knives and light belt hatchets like an elk hunter would use for quartering a carcass. Haven't done it for a while, you may have inspired me to get back into it. Thanks. metalcuttr
