Knife from old file (pics will be coming soon)

N

novaflare

Joined
Dec 14, 2000
Messages
348
Well i had a old worn out file a littlehigh quality gun smith file. So i figured heck with it ill make me a little warn cliff fix blade from it. Well im now at 400 degree oven bake waiting for it to cool to put back in again as described here
http://hossom.com/tutorial/jonesy/
Any how after the first bake it turned to lovely golden color (and yes it is quite nice looking im not being sarcastic here) What im curious about i know various steel types tend to change to a diffrent color when heated. Just what type of steel would turn this golden color?
 
mdoyle said:
Nova,
The color is the effect of the temperature you were tempering at, not the type of steel. Here is a link that should help:
http://www.knives.com/color.html
Matt Doyle
Click to expand...


Ahh ok cool. Now i need to find my stinking stuff for my scanner or might try my digital camera if i can get the drivers to work for it. Im quite pleased how this little blade is turnign out. I was trying to decide what type of handles to put on it shape etc. Then i looked at the knife and it sort of screamed and said not to put any handles on it :)

So i took the little end where the handle was on the file and curved it down in to a small hook shaped bit. Ground the shoulders down to follow the curve and it looks like a rat tail so i think ill call it "The river rat" time to dig up my scanner stuff will post back once i got some scans.

Again thanks for the link.
 
How did you make it Nova? All ginding?
I'm guessing that you ground the shape, then tempered to get rid of some brittleness
 
Mike Arsenault said:
How did you make it Nova? All ginding?
I'm guessing that you ground the shape, then tempered to get rid of some brittleness
Click to expand...
Yeh all grinding on a bench grinder. I just slaped it in the oven at 400 degs for 45 minutes let cool to room temp and repeated to heat treating. I was able to skip the actual tempering stage as not only was it pretempered do to being a file the sucker air hardened even more. If sharpened it up and basically sliced up about 30 3 inch squares or cardbord box to test the edge holding ability. And well it still managed to peel potatoes really well lol. I was totaly amazed at how well i did on the edge bevel free hand no less.

Thats the best grind i have ever gotten.
 
I wonder about that air hardening... I'm using old files too, but I fully anneal them first, at 1450 degrees, then forge and/or grind them to shape. I find my identical file has no trouble at all cutting it, even if I grind to a red heat. got any other pics of knives you've made?
 
Mike Arsenault said:
I wonder about that air hardening... I'm using old files too, but I fully anneal them first, at 1450 degrees, then forge and/or grind them to shape. I find my identical file has no trouble at all cutting it, even if I grind to a red heat. got any other pics of knives you've made?
Click to expand...
Most turned out really bad and i never took any pics. The only other i may have a pic of is the bowie i made from 5160 leaf spring steel. But it was ina very unfinsihed state. It had a very long cleip point (the over all length was 12 inches and the clip portion of the blade went back about 6 inches of the blade. As for forging anealing etc id love to be able to do all that but no cash to buy a forge or to even build one.

Ive made or tried to make plenty of knives from old files made few throwign knives out of them infact and never did aneal them beyond just tossing them in the bb q grill heh. Must have been doing something right though as i still got the one thrower here some where unbroken. Gave one to a friend and some how lost the third. Those were nothign more than ground down files nothing pretty about them just made to stick realy well.

If i had some free cash id get me a new grinder or build one as well as make me some sort of forge.
 
The color is arrived from heat treating and temping the steel. The temperatures will determined the outcome from the color that you see. heat treating at 1500 degrees and tempering at 350 degrees for two hours, utilizing 1095, 1084, 52100 steels will produce colors as in bronze or Gold as you described. This is normal and is what you want in a working knives. And if you quench it correctly you will have a nice looking temper line on the blade. I hope this was of help to you and God bless. Have a safe day in the knife shop.

Barkes
http://my.hsonline.net/wizard/knifeshop.htm
:thumbup:
 
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