I used a belt sander, 1", cut it out of 2" ground tool steel with a hacksaw and ground it to shape, that part went well. I just torch hardened the steel and quenched it in heated oil. I read that on this forum that it can be beneficial to quench in warm oil vs cold, and it was -25 celcius in my garage so heating it seemed the thing to do anyways. I tempered it in the oven at 425f for about 45 minutes,and did get a nice straw color on the steel. I believe I only hardened the cutting edge about a half inch up the blade, as that is where I concentrated the heat.
I can scratch the spine, think that is what it is called, with file a bit, but the whole cutting edge the file did not scratch it at all. The next one I do I will be careful to more fully finish the blade before hardening as the scale was not very nice to deal with after to get the rough scratches out, surface grinder would have worked I guess, but dealing with it by hand was tough.
Not sure how much steel one should leave for the final bevel, but it was a chore to get the bevel on it, wore out a good stone doing it. I was leery of trying the grinder to put it on as I am not too confident yet. I did use a leather belt for the final polish on the edge and it worked great.
Fast14riot, what do you mean by the square corners causing hot spots? I am not sure I understand what that means, but definately welcome any pointers!
I used bedrock bedding compound epoxy for the scales, has always worked well on my rifles and does take 24 hours to set up, and things do not come apart that are not supposed to. The pins were 3/16 brass, and they worked well.
