Hi everyone, first time poster here.
I am in the middle of making my first knife and have been having a blast doing so. In fact, everything has been fairly straightforward and easy thanks to the numerous tutorials and resources here and elsewhere. I have, however, hit a roadblock. I decided on a scandi grind for my knife because I want an outdoors workhorse that is very easy to sharpen and I love the utility and form of my mora. It also seemed that a scandi would be the easiest to grind on a file jig (I have no usable belt grinder). It was easy enough to grind as expected, but I intentionally did not finish the grind to an edge before heat treatment for obvious warping and cracking concerns. Heat treatment went fine as well, but the hardened and tempered (O1) steel is proving to be impossible to grind down from a credit card thickness down to an edge with the tools I have. The file skates across the grind, and sandpaper (what I have been using) is taking off metal at an incredibly slow rate.
I now see that a flat grind would have likely been easier, because although I would need to take off a lot more metal before HT, I wouldn't have to take off quite as much after HT. I even ruined the crisp grind line on one side due to using a janky old handheld belt sander out of desperation. Now I am trying to correct this and make the bevels symmetrical again, AND I am still stuck as to how to bring my grind to an edge.
Here are the most recent pictures of what I'm working with:
Any advice on how I should proceed?
I am in the middle of making my first knife and have been having a blast doing so. In fact, everything has been fairly straightforward and easy thanks to the numerous tutorials and resources here and elsewhere. I have, however, hit a roadblock. I decided on a scandi grind for my knife because I want an outdoors workhorse that is very easy to sharpen and I love the utility and form of my mora. It also seemed that a scandi would be the easiest to grind on a file jig (I have no usable belt grinder). It was easy enough to grind as expected, but I intentionally did not finish the grind to an edge before heat treatment for obvious warping and cracking concerns. Heat treatment went fine as well, but the hardened and tempered (O1) steel is proving to be impossible to grind down from a credit card thickness down to an edge with the tools I have. The file skates across the grind, and sandpaper (what I have been using) is taking off metal at an incredibly slow rate.
I now see that a flat grind would have likely been easier, because although I would need to take off a lot more metal before HT, I wouldn't have to take off quite as much after HT. I even ruined the crisp grind line on one side due to using a janky old handheld belt sander out of desperation. Now I am trying to correct this and make the bevels symmetrical again, AND I am still stuck as to how to bring my grind to an edge.
Here are the most recent pictures of what I'm working with:
Any advice on how I should proceed?
