Making a Knife With Simple Hand Tools

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me2

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Oct 11, 2003
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I found a piece of A2 while cleaning up and it's just big enough to make a knife. Its left over from some failed projects years ago. I haven't made a knife from annealed bar stock in years. I plan to send it out for heat treatment.

My shop arrangement now doesn't lend itself to grinding and I'd like to try doing this one by hand with files, sandpaper, etc. The steel is 1/16" stock. I know it would be easier to profile it, send it out and then grind it after HT. However, that's not really feasible right now.

Can I hacksaw the profile, file the bevels, sand to 220 or 400 grit, send it for heat treatment and finish sand/polish when it comes back? Past A2 I've had heat treated had a thin layer of soft steel/decarb that was maybe 1/64" deep. Can I profile, shape, and heat treat with that in mind and plan for that to be removed by sanding or even filing? With it only being 1/16" thick, how thick should I leave it before HT?
 
Leave the edge about a dime thick and when you send it for HT request foil to be used and that will keep the decarb away.
 
Is there a way to thin that out after heat treatment easier than the obvious way of doing it by hand with sand paper?
 
me2 said:
Is there a way to thin that out after heat treatment easier than the obvious way of doing it by hand with sand paper?
Click to expand...
I would try doing it with coarse diamond stones. They can be bought very cheaply on Aliexpress. The kind that you would use for a sharpening jig. Do the bulk work with a 80 and 120 stone and then finish wind sandpaper. You could get three 80 grit stones and two 120 grit stone for 10 dollars. Maybe even the finer grit stones would pay out.
I wanted to order some and try how long will the grit work but didn't come to it yet.
 
me2 said:
Is there a way to thin that out after heat treatment easier than the obvious way of doing it by hand with sand paper?
Click to expand...
I would talk to the person doing your HT. Brad at Peters' told me that A2 is one of the best behaved steels in his experience. You can send it at 0.015" edge thickness, which depending on the design doesn't leave far to go. I did a couple Bowies in A2 recently and there was little to no decarb.
Do a search for EDM stones, those are another useful hand tool to consider.
 
I posted this yesterday, but for some reason it is still in the reply box???

With A-2 I would recommend about half the thickness of a dime - .025-.030" A dime is .053", which would mean a lot of material would need to be removed after HT. You need to take it down to about .005" or less before sharpening.

Stones are the simplest way to take the blade down by hand after HT. A coarse/medium bench stone will work fine. After that you use abrasive paper and a hard backing block to take it down to the final finish.
 
Got it. Any suggestions for finish before HT? I figure 220 or 300 grit?
 
220 is more then enough, I wouldn't bother going finer then 120 if you are going to grind/sand afterward anyway. Get rid of file marks and have the scratch pattern on the edge and around the profile going lengtwise.
 
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