Minibear's WIP/I NEED HELP!

Okay. Thanks for the tips, but, my dad got his reciproating saw over, and.... it's done! Although there were some sparks... bad?
 
Haha, sweet. Then I'm just going to be filing and cleaning up the remains of the holes. Although, due to some less than perfect drilling and sawing, the shape is altered a bit. :D
 
Alright. Gave it around another hour or two, and here is what I have so far. The filing was mostly done at the tip, and a bit in the first finger choil. Any way to speed this up?
P1060063.jpg


EDIT: Whoops, old photo. The newer one just has a 2mm or so groove in the first finger.
 
Update: Sorry, holidays got a little busy, but I've essentially gotten the shape all cut out. Now I'm going to anneal again, primarily to straighten the blade out. (It's a little bent right now). Anyone have tips for filing the bevels? I'm a bit foggy on how to keep the angle right as I move up the blade, since there's less and less material to grind.
P1060069.jpg
 
Do yourself a favor and go to your nearest, biggest, box hardware store (or try ebay or craiglist) and get yourself a 20 to 25 dollar angle grinder.

Buy a few dollars worth of cut off wheels and grinding wheels, and use that to cut your templates out.

THEN.... next time you buy some steel, try to spend a little extra and get some CRA... (Cold Rolled Annealed). It will cut and drill 1000x easier. HR is RARELY annealed unless you do it yourself, and for strictly stock removal blades, you'll be money (and time) ahead to start with CRA.

Another option is is to use Carbide tipped masonry bits next time. Run them fast with plenty of cutting fluid.

Here's another option that will give you some more control over profiling with an angle grinder:

[video=youtube;ZuOSCG-PCr4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuOSCG-PCr4[/video]
Sorry for the crappy vid... it was my old youtube channel using my old iPhone....
 
Get a solid table that is higher. see what works for you as far as height goes. file the air and see what height feels comfortable. I am 6 foot and my table is 40 inches high. It is about right and works really well when I use my entire body to push the file. after you rough out the shape with the file, then take a single cut file and start drawfiling, with means holding one end of the file in one hand and the other in your other hand. you can either push the file or pull it, either one works. if pushing, the tang goes in your right hand, if pushing, it goes in your left. lay it on the angle and push/pull while putting some weight on the metal. it doesn't remove metal that fast, but it makes stuff flat. once the edge is down to almost the right thickness, go over any places that you missed and that are thicker than others. after that, start sanding. You won't have a perfect first blade, but they will improve with practice.
 
I did basically the same thing with my angle grinder as in the video but just made mine out of wood.. it works well to get a basic shape. Be very careful and wear good eye/face protection and don't put too much pressure or side pressure on the discs... I use the wider disks for grinding primary shapes.
 
minibear464

I wish I could give you detailed information but what I posted is all the information that I have. As I said, I haven't tried this yet, but what I'm reading is that it is more than just heating and quenching. I interpret it to say that each time you heat it you heat it up a LITTLE bit less before quenching, i.e. "each time heating it to a lower temperature."

Good luck.

- Paul Meske
 
Alright. Thanks guys. The problem I'm thinking I'll encounter is keeping the angle correct while filing. At first, all I need to do is connect the line I scribed to the back of the blade, correct? But what happens as I start moving towards the tip, where there is less material? I'll encounter a larger and larger angle. How should I prevent this?
 
You will be filing the tip thinner and thinner. you can leave the tip thicker and increase the angle a little bit, but in general. your tip should taper down from point as far back from the tip as the grind is high. if your grind goes 1.5 inches up the blade, for example, the blade should begin to taper 1.5 inches from the tip to the tip.
 
Okay, I know it's been forever since an update, but school has gotten in the way and there really wasn't much to show. Anyways, done filing on both sides now! Two... three questions. First off, can I heat treat as is? It's not finished at all, and basically just filed down. Will I have to sand it, and if so, to what grit? Also, normalization is just heat to critical, 1500 degrees F, and then let it cool down in the air? I plan on normalizing twice, then bringing it up to critical, and plunging into canola oil. Anything else? And any way to reduce the chances of cracking? Since I'm really afraid of losing the blade to heat treat.
As the blade is right now:
DSC_0309.jpg
 
OK, I am going to be brutally honest here. Don't take this is as an insult, I do the same thing all the time. If you work on this, your work will improve overnight.

You aren't done filing. I do the same thing all the time, and I always need to tell myself that I am not done and just to keep working. Take your file, find an angle that is about the same as your current bevel angle, and then file that angle until everything is reasonable flat. Then get some mild steel barstock, about 9 inches of 3/16ths, and file about a chisel grind about 2 inches wide in the middle down to about 1/16th of an inch. Take a sheet of sandpaper and wrap it around the ground part, and then go after the bevel until it is an even 120. HT it, and then clean it up after.

Also, clean up the profile. Remember, after heat treat, everything will be harder to do. filing will be a struggle and sanding will be much more of a pain. Just stick with it. It will be worth the effort.

I am not picking on you. I have this same problem myself, and I still have not overcome it.
 
I agree.

Don't heat treat now, keep filing.

I say you're about 1/2 to 1/3 done the filing.

It looks like the bevels you have filed are still very fat and rounded curved

Watch the Midway draw filing an octagon barrel on youtube and try that

It will help you to flatten it out.


Filing is tough enough now.
Once it's hard, forget it.

[video=youtube;U6_7drExBNQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6_7drExBNQ[/video]



Also try watching the Green Pete video, see Eric Fleming's file jig, see Unki_Gumby file jig see if you can make a way to hold your file at a steady angle.

you can rig up something with broomsticks and hose clamps...think about it and give it a try.
 
So try to file it flatter? Because right now the edge is at 1/16th of an inch. And should I clean up all the blackness? Or can I leave it like that?

And thanks for all the comments.
 
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