File Knife Attempt Questions

C

CAS88

Joined
Oct 27, 2020
Messages
4
Hi There,

My first knife attempt has quickly lead to a first post on the forum. I found an old Nicholson file left in a shed in the backyard of a house my family just moved to. I had some time Sunday and decided to test my skills at turning it into a knife. Ive done quite a bit of welding/fabricating, but never attempted a knife.

I took the file and drew out a rough shape to what I thought I was after. After a couple hours with an angle grinder and a handheld belt sander, I thought I had a pretty cool shape. I called it a day and started googling "knife from a file" and quickly realized I had probably gone a little backwards with my approach.

So, am I too far along to salvage this knife? I don't have a forge, but have a propane cutting torch and a rosebud tip that I have used to heat much thicker steel to "malleable" in the past. If the knife is still salvageable, what are my steps going forward? It does not have a cutting edge on it, but it is tapered pretty thin towards the edge.

If any heat treatments/annealing is off the table at this point, should I just try and hone the edge as is and use it until it breaks?

After reading about it more Sunday night, from the looks of my knife, the tip got too hot, should I re shape a little to remove the darkened area?

Any likelihood of me drilling a few holes in the handle and putting a complete handle on without any heat/steel altering approach? I have cobalt bits and a drill press but no carbide.

Lots of novice questions here, I know there are a number of similar threads, but I couldn't find one where someone goofed like me and jumped to step 4 at the start. Any help is appreciated, not attached to it at this point but would like to save it if possible. Cant figure out how to post a picture for referencing...

Thanks

Clayton
 
CAS88 said:
but it is tapered pretty thin towards the edge
Click to expand...
How thin at the edge? Something you'll read regularly is that many makers take their edges to about a dime thickness (0.030"-0.040") before quenching/heat treating.
CAS88 said:
If any heat treatments/annealing is off the table at this point...
Click to expand...
If you share where you are, I'd bet there are some knife makers nearby with the right equipment who would be willing to HT the blade for you, then you don't need to worry about the blue tip.
CAS88 said:
Any likelihood of me drilling a few holes in the handle
Click to expand...
I think carbide bits are going to be the way to go if you want to keep the factory HT of the file.
 
If you didn't overheat the rest, you can reprofile the tip. You should also temper the file so it is not brittle. You can shove it a normal oven at 200°C for an hour. Do this twice and cool it off in between in water. For drilling the handle take your torch to it first to soften it. Wrap the blade in a wet towel to not transfer the heat to it.
 


At the point closest to the start of the handle, it is probably right at your dime thickness. Towards the point it is thinner, however with a very small amount of additional shaping I could even out the thickness I would think.

I am in Central Texas, hill country area. I imagine there are a number of them around, however I don't know any off hand.

Yes, I attempted the cobalt bits/drill press and some cutting oil for a short enough time this morning to salvage my drill bit and realize that wasn't going to do it. Don't think I want to spend the money on the carbide bits quite yet.

I am not opposed to attempting (and failing if it happens) to using my available heat source to try and fix the issues if that is a possibility and the knife is not "too far". If I were to heat it "past magnetized" as I was reading about, and then let it cool over night, would that enable me to drill the holes in the handle? And at that point I would have to re-heat treat correct?

Thanks again for the help.
 
CAS88 said:
If I were to heat it "past magnetized" as I was reading about, and then let it cool over night, would that enable me to drill the holes in the handle? And at that point I would have to re-heat treat correct?
Click to expand...
The key to annealing/spheroidizing (making it easy to machine) is slow cooling. This is what folks are doing when you see them take the heated blade and shove it in a pile of vermiculite, sand, ash, etc... A lot of smiths will put their blades in the forge after shutting off the burner overnight for the slow cooling. Heating and letting it cool overnight in air will not do it.
And yes, you would have to HT it again.
 
CAS88 said:


At the point closest to the start of the handle, it is probably right at your dime thickness. Towards the point it is thinner, however with a very small amount of additional shaping I could even out the thickness I would think.

I am in Central Texas, hill country area. I imagine there are a number of them around, however I don't know any off hand.

Yes, I attempted the cobalt bits/drill press and some cutting oil for a short enough time this morning to salvage my drill bit and realize that wasn't going to do it. Don't think I want to spend the money on the carbide bits quite yet.

I am not opposed to attempting (and failing if it happens) to using my available heat source to try and fix the issues if that is a possibility and the knife is not "too far". If I were to heat it "past magnetized" as I was reading about, and then let it cool over night, would that enable me to drill the holes in the handle? And at that point I would have to re-heat treat correct?

Thanks again for the help.
Click to expand...

You don't need to heat past magnetized. You just need to soften it enough that a normal (hss) drill will do the job, 400-500c should be more then enough. Apply local heat to the place you want to drill and wrap the blade in a wet towel to protect it from heat. If you clean it the steel you can observe the tempering colors.
Tempering_standards_used_in_blacksmithing.jpeg


After drilling temper all blade at 200c.
 
Weo - I appreciate the continued feedback and the knowledge. I could certainly attempt the annealing and re heat treat. I am wondering though if I may be better off salvaging as best as I can with FredyCro's process and then attempting another knife/heat treat with some stock that is already annealed/easier worked/easy to heat treat? In reading, it seemed like the 1084 blanks were a good steel for me to go to on my next attempt and could possibly heat treat with my torch...

FredyCro -

Thank you for sharing. Those all sound like steps I can manage. I will try the torch in the 3 spots I want to drill holes while keeping the blade wrapped/cool. Just to clarify, I drill the 3 holes after the steel has cooled off?

Assuming I get my holes drilled, I will then temper as you described. Once I have it tempered, I then need to remove the blued/overheated tip, correct? At that point, is it fair to say I can attempt to finish shape/put a cutting edge on the knife (while keeping everything as cool as possible in the process)?

Thanks

Clayton
 
You can't swing a dead cat by the tail in the hill country without smacking a knifemaker.
Go check out Texas Knifemakers Guild and search for a maker near you.
Most of us are always willing to help.
I am in Caldwell if that's close to you.
 
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