...Use a known steel for your first knives. You don't have the proper equipment or experience to make knives from unknown steels...
Heck Stacy, I don't even have the right equipment to make knives from unknown steel, perhaps if I ever find a good crystal ball that works
Experience I have, and while it can give you the edge on the guessing game, what all of my experience tells me is that is not worth it.
I started out using files when I was around 10 and worked up through plenty of scrap steels, there was a lot of heartache and anguish over shooting in the dark and overcoming a previous heat treatment that had nothing to do with what I wanted. Then when I actually added up the price of a new bar of steel with an open mind it didn't take me long to spend the few dollars to have a pristine piece of known material delivered to my doorstep. But all the previous years I was in love with the idea that I was making a knife with a history, one with character, and if a file cut steel it had to be the best steel in the world for cutting things in my mind. And to top it off I had read about really famous bladesmiths that use files, leaf springs and other scrap, and they were really famous so they had to make great knives!
This is not a parody, it is exactly what I personally went through and how I looked at things, until I started working that new steel. Oh I had a period of doubt as I adjusted to steel that would actually break if bent after the quench if not tempered properly, all of my scrap steel knives bent really well so something was wrong. When I realized that what was wrong was the criteria I had been fed about performance all my troubles went away. Years later when asked if I could do it over what would I do different, without hesitation I would have erased those years wasted on trying to make a good tool out of unknown scrap, and I got angry at those "famous" smiths who had me chasing my tale. Starting out with steels that I had to guess about didn't give me any useful practice for later on, all it did was create bad habits that I had to overcome and relearn later. A clean slate is much easier to write on than one full of scribbles.
So when I (or Stacy as I am sure he would agree), suggest losing the scrap for a fresh known piece of steel, we honestly are not trying to be elitist steel snobs looking down our noses at folks. We are genuinely trying to give our best advice to help folks skip the hard knocks an trial and error headaches we had to endure; one doesn't know how much harder it can be until you have been there done it and then saw the other side.
I guess one could consider enduring the previous paragraphs of preaching a small price to pay for me to break down and give the generic heat treating advice that may work for file steel:
Heat the file up until glowing red in a fire and allow it to slowly cool. This will undo the original heat treatment that allowed it to cut steel, so that you can cut it with another file or a grinder, then shape it and hand sand it to no more than 200X. Next heat it again in fire but carefully so that it comes up slow and even until it goes non-magnetic and is an even bright red throughout. Now without wasting any time plunge it into as large container of quenchant as possible and keep the blade moving under the surface, either spine to edge or point to tang, but never flat to flat. (I will not even touch what quenchants to use since that would spawn at least three more pages of how to avoid what the "experts" say
) When cold, clean the blade off and get it into your oven ASAP and bake it at 375F for 2 hours. If it still seems too hard bake it again at 400F.
Work with this method for a while and if you ever get a chance to get real steel I implore you to give it a try and see if it changes all of your ideas about what was covered here.
