best steel to use for a fillet knife?

My stock answer to that question is,
" Have a baby....But I'm pretty good at making them!"
(I've delivered several,and have three of my own.)

BTW, I worked for Ford Motor and, Yes, I've made cars.

I'll give the condensed bio as to types of work I've done. Many were concurrent with other jobs.
Wasp/hornet nest removal (12 years old)
House painter, roofer, carpenter,electrician,bricklayer
Seller of venemous snakes,snake handler
Electronics work for NAVELEX - crypto clearance
Ford Motor Norfolk Assembly
Virginia Chemicals Research Chemist
Pre-med
Veterinary work , farm work, tending cattle and horses,
Camp Master, Pipsico Scout Reservation
Eagle scout 1962; was even a registered girl scout at one time
Jeweler, goldsmith, silversmith, GIA appraiser/gemologist
Stone cutter/faceter, lapidary
Built and raced Hydroplanes and motorcycles
Went to Annapolis, USNA
Food service - everything from McDonnald's to asst. director of dining services at Va Wesleyan Col.
Taught night school Drivers Ed - scariest job I ever had!

Oh yeah, I make a knife or two in my spare time!
Stacy
 
koyote said:
I'm not doing salt water, but I'm in the process of grinding a couple filet knives out - this is where my old crosscut saw scrap is handy. L6. We'll see how they turn out.

The two I'm making are a backpacking one with a 3.5 inch blade and a 'regular northern cali" one with a 7 inch blade.

I know nada bout stainless in this case.
Click to expand...

I made several hundred fillet/kitchen knives from old cross cut saws years ago. Not L6, acted more like 1075/1084. This saw steel made very, very good knives though. Most of the fillet knives I made had blades from 6" to 12" and around half of them went to the Gulf coast of Florida. The comerical fishermen down there did not want stainless.

Stacy, Sounds like you've done about all of it :)
 
Allan Molstad said:
How would you Heat treat it?
How would you grind it later without over heating the blade?

I would love to make a bunch of filet knives, but I dont see many being made on this forum, I have no idea how to do it?

But I would love to see a step-by-step link posted on this topic.
Click to expand...

Allan, one way to avoid having to grind after HT is to get the blade 99% done first. I actually have a 154CPM Fillet blade about to go to HT, I finished it to 1500 (thats what the customer wanted) so all I have to do is clean up the discoloration after HT and slap on handles.

mete said:
CPM154 would be a great choice .Like all stainless it has to be very carefully heat treated !!! Flexibility depends on thickness not HT !!!
Click to expand...
True. I have one fillet that has a spine of .046 mid blade, and it is quite flexible. Another has a spine of .081 and the difference is like night and day.

PimpinSquee said:
mete, what would you recommend the final thickness to be? what range?
Allan, i would have it sent off for HT and if need-be have them temper it too. it would still look great and be meaningful not to mention it would be the best fillet knife i have ever owned. i do give credit to Rapala on their fillet knives but they still cant beat a handmade knife. im also wondering how a stag handle would look on a fillet knife. :D
Click to expand...
From my observations (with 154CPM) a spine of .045-.050 and an edge of around .025 before the actual edge will be quite flexible. The non flexible one had a spine of .081, and an edge of .050 (good idea, poor execution actually). I sent them to Mr. Bos for HT so there is no question there. Stag handles? My pops has a stag handled fillet blade and the thing has GREAT wet grip. Looks pretty sweet also. My only concern would be making sure the handles were REALLY waterproof. OTOH one of mine has marroon linen micarta handles sanded to 400grit (?), not polished and it has pretty decent wet grip also.
 
Although I haven't read all the posts my vote is for ATS-34. I made many fillet knives out of ATS-34 before deciding they weren't worth making, all of them have been used heavily with happy customers.

I used 1/16" stock and ground them quite thin, ie. lots of flex.

Sean
 
Allan Molstad said:
gixxer
Have you taken photos of how to make a Fillet knife?
Click to expand...

Allan, no I have not. but, as a matter of factly I got another order for one yesterday, so I should take some photos. Basically, it is a flat grind, and I totally wipe out the plunge. I taper the spine from .093 to .046 over 2" from the ricasso to tip, give or take. Why .093? That's all I could get from Crucible @ the time, or so Elizabeth in Charlotte said. I feel this gives the spine more stability as it gets closer to the handle, more or less controlling the flex till there is hardly any flex @ the ricasso . The edge taper @ choil is about .5", maybe less. didnt measure. Ok, heres 2 pics, I just threw the lightbox together. After this, no more thread jack, thank you for your patience. But for those interested, I will start a fillet how to thread.

washed out plunge
Fillet5.jpg


Spine taper
Fillet7.jpg
 
gixxer, feel free to post your tutorial here. it would keep things in order and help me and the other out. thanks for those pics.
 
Gixxer does it pretty much the same as I do.
Profile - taper - flat grind - HT - -finish - handle - edge

Here are some photos. The large fillet blank is 16" and the small one is 13". They are .128 thick. The finished knives are also 16" and 13". The smaller finished knives are from .093 stock.
Stacy
 
thanks Stacy for the pics. in your opinion, does an upswept tip work and/or sell better than an almost straight spine fillet knife? i would think that the upswept tip would work better and its probably how im going to design my blade.
 
Yes, the more flexible, the more up-sweep. This allows the tip to follow the bones and skin while filleting. On larger and stiff knives, it is not such a big deal (these are more for cutting up big fish,than filleting them),but the tip should still curve up to the spine and not be a straight triangular taper. The only exception is Sashimi (sushi) knives and Deba knives. They have a straight edge to the tip.
Stacy

Now get out of your PJ's and get ready to go to work,Jacob! When you get home from work, don't post a thing until you have finished working on one of those knives you have going. I expect to see some real work done by Monday .

I am going out to mow the lawn, and then to the scrap yard, and then in the forge all afternoon. I plan on profiling and grinding two fillet and two sashimi blades from CPM M-4, and will also do those four in CPM 154 from the photos.
See y'all tonight.
Stacy
 
i still have 2 and a half hours before i need to be at work and its only a 15 min drive. since i just woke up at 5pm CST yesterday i decided to pull an all-nighter knowing if i slept i would be late to work. when i get home i need to work on a new table for my 2x42. i will probably cut out a new knife that is full tang and save these others im working on until i can buy handles for them. i also need to cut up a bunch of brush and burn part of it. that work will get done if i dont pass out when i get home. i dont think i would want to work on a knife having been awake for over 24 hours. HEHEHE!!!! :D
 
Alrighty then. Got a lot of work done this morning. Here it goes.

First, I profiled by abusing my drill press.
redneckmill1.jpg

redneckmill2.jpg


Then, I scribed the spine to .080. The scribe lines did not come out too well in the photo.
080scribe.jpg
 
I then used a sharpie to mark my start and end of the taper. For this blade I was going from .093 to .080 so I only needed an inch or so.

taperspacing.jpg


Then I ground the spine to the scribe up to 120 grit to change the scratch pattern. That helps me see whats going on better when I grind the flat.
topgrind1.jpg


Another bad top grind photo
topgrind2.jpg
 
I then ground the flats (edge up, down, guess it really matters not as long as you get the spine cleaned up), making sure to grind all the way till there is no more 120grit scratches showing on the spine. My lines scrubbed off, but no biggie.
flatgrind.jpg


Now comes the guts of the operation. Holding the knife edge down with the plunge even with the edge of the platen, I ground the taper for the spine. Only letting the knife touch the belt in between the lines is key here or you have more to clean up, and less flat area up front for handle mounting grief. As you can see from the pictures, I have a lot of cleaning up to do cause I ground too much. To grind the taper for the edge, flip the knife edge up, and once again let the plunge line up with the edge of the platen. Grind till you get the bottom taper how you want it, once again being careful only to grind in the lines. After a while it should look like this.
tapergrind.jpg
 
Since I do not have a fine touch with the belt over 120grit, I clean the taper up the hard way by hand. I had to use a hand file for the fillet blade in my posts from yesterday to get the taper exactly how I wanted it. You guys might be able to get what you want with power tools. Lucky. Depending on how you grind the edge, you can have the taper an even 90deg to the ricasso, or if you grind the edge all the way up to the choil and clean up the transition from edge to spine, it can be around 45deg. you cant see it noticeably, but you know its there. Thats how I finished the previous blade. This one was an even 90deg.
handsand.jpg
 
thanks man. cant wait to see the rest of the tutorial. also just so yall know i survived my first day of work and have now been awake for over 25 hours. should be passing out soon. still have emails and such to check.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top