Drop point rasp knife

[ACLakey]

A farrier buddy of mine gave me a pile of rasps to play with. I went to the grinder and this is what developed....these things are HARD and it was slow going.

I finished to 400 grit and threw some canvas micarta scales on. I'm going to make a sheath this weekend....im ready to take this one to the woods.

 

[jds1]

Nice work!

Jeff

 

[nlewman]

Looks really nice!

 

[RevDevil]

Looks good, try annealing the rasp before you grind it. You'll save a ton on belts and time. You can always heat treat the rasp again later.

 

[ACLakey]

Thanks for the tip, I was given a small forge that needs a little repair work. I'll have it up and running soon.

 

[RX-79G]

Thanks for the tip, I was given a small forge that needs a little repair work. I'll have it up and running soon.

There are lots of ways of dealing with files, but I don't think trying to anneal and re-heat treat them with a basic forge is actually any easier. Annealing requires cooling at a rate of no more than 50° an hour, which is not easy even with a small pile of ash. And heat treating file steel, which is hypereutectoid steel of around 1% or more carbon is no picnic in a forge where you can't hold the temp steady at 1475° (or whatever) for a minute to let the carbon get into solution. And that's assuming that you're guessing what kind of steel you're heat treating enough to the get the time, temps and quenchant right.

The file is perfectly heat treated for the steel it is made of. I'd suggest keeping that HT and simply tempering it down to the knife range - I'd go with 450°F for an hour, which should get you down to 59-61 Hrc. Plenty of blade makers working with air tempered steels like S30V or 3V do all their grinding after receiving the blanks back from the heat treater, and while that takes longer to grind, you save time on the annealing and HT side.

Your final product will be much better than any guessed at forge heat treat even an expert could execute. You can speed up your grinding sometimes with a cheap angle grinder from Harbor Freight to knock the edges down before going to the belt sander.

 

[ACLakey]

Funny you should mention this, being the inquisitive engineering that I am I usually research subjects to death. I had time yesterday to do a little reading on steel and came to the conclusion I would try to anneal the rasps before working with them. Thank you for the reply reply, information and verification of my findings.

I sent you a PM with some general questions.

Andrew

 

[Charlie Mike]

Keep it up and 6 years from now, you'll have this on order!

 

[ACLakey]

I could see that happening. The wife mentioned she wants a kiln for her glass work....hmmmm.

 

[Charlie Mike]

I could see that happening. The wife mentioned she wants a kiln for her glass work....hmmmm.

That oven will definitely fill the role.

 

[gazz98]

Nice! I love the look of file/rasp knives and the pattern that shows.