Half round file forging

[Kessik221]

So I have probably a 5 gallon bucket full of half round files that I've been putting off doing anything with. I want to make knives out of them (I've forged flat files into knives before) but I'm unsure what to really do with them. My first thought was to just take a cross pein or a ball pein and just start trying to flatten the round part. My second thought was trying to cut it and forge weld it into round stock, but I've never forge welded before. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[coldsteelburns]

Hmm... Well, before forging I'd grind the edges/sides of the file a bit so they had some thickness and also grind down the sharpness and height of the file teeth to prevent a bunch of tiny cold shuts from forming due to the teeth folding over while forging, which is what I do on any file I forge now. You can grind the teeth quite a bit and it will still have the pattern of the teeth after forging.

Just start flattening the round side and try to keep some thickness of the sides as well so it will more closely resemble bar stock, and once you get it close then begin forging the blade profile. You can clean up any uneven or non-square edges around its profile via stock removal.

I've never forged a half round, but that's basically how I'd go about it if I were going to try. I probably wouldn't even bother unless it was a big one with enough mass to move around to get it close enough to resembling bar stock which is then still thick enough to forge the blade. And I would skip forge welding them together.

~Paul
My Youtube Channel
... (Just some older videos of some knives I've made in the past)