File knife?

Danbo

Danbo

Joined
Nov 28, 1999
Messages
14,985
Gonna be bummed out, if this turns out to be a junk file, instead of a good high carbon one. I know, I probably shouldn't have spent ANY time on it, without knowing for sure, but I just had to try. Don't tell me all of you haven't done the same thing before.

Anywho, it was an old really rusty file a guy at work gave me; said it was his Grandfather's, etc... So, the other night, I stuck it in the Evenheat at 1450 for about 15 minutes and then shut the oven off, to anneal it and be able to work on it.

Then, today, I drilled, profiled and ground it. The oven is set at 1460 right now. Planning on soaking the blade(no clay) for about 15 minutes and then doing a full quench into warmed Park's 50. I'll update this thread later, with the outcome.

Here's how it looks now, before the quench.


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Very cool.

That Grandpas file will be around for another hundred + years now.
 
A minor change, but I would go at 1475°, with the Parks at about 100°.
 
Not seeing any Hamon yet; but, I wasn't trying for one. Blade seems rock hard and a file skated off the edge. One 2 hour temper at 400 and it came out golden brownish color. Will do another temper tomorrow and finish grind to a finer grit and see if a Hamon pops up. I can't help but think it will.

One thing weird about this blade; the sparks. It throws sparks, not really white, but kind of a reddish orange/bright yellow. We'll see tomorrow, after I get it to a finer grit.
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Looks good! Some of my first knives were file knives and I still use them now and then. They aren't the be-all end-all of performance but they work and are actually really tough little knives.
The idea of a tool that can be used to make knives, being recycled into a knife itself, has an appealing continuity to it.

Next time you are in the same situation, maybe you could use a cutting wheel or something to lop a chunk off the file, and test harden it while you have the oven heated up to anneal the rest. You won't have to wonder as long.
 
I have never made a knife in my life and likely never will. But I have to say that, that is pretty bad ass that that knife started it's life as and was a file for a long time.

Very cool.
 
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