My first grinding project - Kiridashi from a Nicholson file

Stephen Tolar

Stephen Tolar

Joined
Nov 17, 2005
Messages
1,143
My first post over here…

I’m just starting out and have been practicing my grinding. My first projects have been some simple chisel ground kiridashis made out of Nicholson files.

It’s been great practice, I’m learning a lot and have actually ended up with a few that I like. I’ve cord-wrapped them and started to sharpen and polish the bevels on stones. They take a good edge but I don’t know how well they will hold it.

Does anybody have any experience with using these files? I’m curious to know what steel they are made of and what hardness to expect after grinding. I did all the grinding by hand and quenched often to keep the temperature down.

Any input would be great.

Thanks,
Stephen
 

Attachments

  • Kiridashi 001.jpg
    Kiridashi 001.jpg
    41.1 KB · Views: 242
Heat, controlled and used properly is your friend! Nicholson files are very freakin' hard as they come from the store, you probably used a ton of abrasive if you didn't anneal first. I started my first knife when I was 14 out of a nicholson file. I clamped it in a vise, and hit it with a hammer sideways to snap off the excess, if broke with a clean snap! Then I annealed it as best I could at the time by taking a torch and running red heat up and down the blade, which softened it to the point where I could file it. I did my work on it, ground it, then heat treated it, quenching in olive oil, then tempering to a light straw gold, then finish ground and polished it. It was great steel, I still have it 23 years later (I also have the solingen stainless knife I cut that afternoon to win a bet with someone who said american steel was no good, I took his money and his knife) the secret to making a great knife is in the heat treat. Great knives are conceived by the hand, and born in the fire.

Good luck, keep working, ask lots of advice!

-Page
 
Stephen Tolar said:
I’m curious to know what steel they are made of and what hardness to expect after grinding. I did all the grinding by hand and quenched often to keep the temperature down.

Any input would be great.

Thanks,
Stephen
Click to expand...


Well, like Page said, it depends on how hot you got it grinding it. If you ran your colors to blue, you "lost your temper"...

I would not be surprised if that file was 65HRC 1095, but I don't know. You can bet it was very hard before the heat of grinding.
 
The steel is 1095. Someone posted on here a few years ago (or maybe it was another forum) that Nicholson files rockwell at 62c. As long as you didn't get it hot enough to change colors, it should still have it's original hardness. Kiridashi's are fun to make and surprisingly usefull. I wear one in a neck sheath at work everyday and use it constantly.

Todd
 
Gotta be careful, supposedly even the newer nicholsons are case hardened! VERY nice little 'Dashi Stephen, very well done! keep it up, wait until you try forging!
 
bake it in the oven at 425-450 for an hour, quench in water, repeat twice
use a cookie sheet above and below (or even better pizza stones) as a shield against air currents or infrared, preheat the oven fro a good 1/2 hour to let everything even out first. You should see a light straw gold oxide color. that will take out some of the brittleness, I would guess that you should be still about a rockwell 55-58, but I do not have a tester to back that guess so it is just a guess.

-Page
 
if you don't want to guess what the steel you are playing with is, get some 1084 from Mace, or some tool steel from your local machine shop supply, or a place like Admiral, then follow the plans for a "one brick forge" for doing your heat treat in. I hate mystery metal. There is nothing worse than putting a whole lot of work into something and finding out your assumption of what the metal was was wrong. Metal is cheap compared to the work that goes into a great knife It pays to get the best raw material to start with.

-Page
 
Several years ago Ed Caffrey had a bunch of files from several different brands tested for chemical composition. All of the Nicholsons came back as 1095. Don Fogg lives close to a Nicholson manufacturing facility and bought a bunch of 1095 from them. They offered it to him because it wasn't the exact dimentions they needed. I agree that new, known steel is the way to go to insure proper heat treat and quality, but Nicholson files are most assuredly 1095 and hardly "mystery steel".

Todd
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top