Hardened the Metal With an Angle Grinder???

T

Thurman Blades

Joined
Aug 31, 2023
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Hey everyone. I am brand new to knife making. In fact I'm currently trying to make my first knife. I watched some guys on YouTube, bought some gear, and got myself 1080 steel.

Tonight I took an angle grinder to it and roughly cut out the shape of the knife. Then I put it in a vice and grabbed my bastard file to get it down to shape and smooth it out, and that's where I encountered my issue.

The file seems to just skirt over the metal, almost like it's hardened. I grabbed the other half of the metal I had cut off and my file chews through it with no issue. So I'm at a lost as to why the file isn't doing anything to the knife blank I cut out.

I can't imagine I hardened it since I didn't quench it anything, but the file just doesn't do anything to it. Does anyone know why it could possibly be acting like it's hardened and how I could fix it?
 
It’s probably just at the very edge where it air hardened, you could probably knock of the hard edge a bit with the grinder at a bevel but keep it cool. Otherwise I don’t know how hot you would have to get it to anneal it to file it but when I am cutting a blank with a angle grinder I use a trickle of water to keep it cool.
 
could it be mill scale?
maybe try sanding it down with a flap disc on your angle grinder first.
 
Get a flap disk for your grinder and grind the hardened area back a little. Keep a bucket of water close by and dip the blade after each pass on the grinder to keep it cool.
 
Same can happen when drilling pin holes (food for thought).
 
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