Question about a piece of steel.

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TheEdge01

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Is this a planer blade? If so, would it make a decent knife? I am new to knife making, so I have been practicing on old files and leaf spring steel. Right now, I am mostly struggling with heat treating and tempering. My file blades came out ok looking but wouldn’t take an edge no matter how much I tried to sharpen it. I’m assuming the temper was too low. Anyway, any advice would be appreciated.
 
TheEdge01 said:
Sure do
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Then why you struggling with heat treating and tempering of file ? They are already heat treated by factory . Just cut/shape knife , grind bevels and then just temper them to make them usable as knife ... 2 x two hours on 400-450 F is what I do to temper them ............
That piece look like planer blade .Check it with file
 
Natlek said:
Then why you struggling with heat treating and tempering of file ? They are already heat treated by factory . Just cut/shape knife , grind bevels and then just temper them to make them usable as knife ... 2 x two hours on 400-450 F is what I do to temper them ............
That piece look like planer blade .Check it with file
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The file blades I made wouldn’t sharpen hardly at all. I set the toaster oven at 400 degrees and left it in there for an hour. I tempered it twice but the blade didn’t come out with a straw color. So I thought maybe the oven didn’t actually heat up to 400 degrees or I didn’t leave it in long enough.
 
The color of a blade tempered in an oven has nothing to do with the hardness or amount of tempering. The old. "Straw color" thing was about flame tempering tools like chisels and gravers, and for blades that used to be quick tempered with a flame or on a hot plate of iron on the coal forge. Tempering in an oven can produce all sorts of colors.

That looks like a planer blade, but you have no idea what alloy or metal type it is. Use it to hammer things on, but don't make a knife from it.

If you want reliable HT and tempering results, use a known steel.1075, 1080, 1084, 5160, and O-1 are all cheap and reliable steels.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
If you want good and reliable HT results - get a bar of regular knife blade steel and use it. 1075, 1080,1084, 1560, O-1 all are cheap and make great knives.
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I plan on ordering some soon. Which of those would be the best to practice ht on. Right now I’m practicing on leaf spring steel by heating it up to where it becomes non-magnetic then quenching in canola oil.
 
TheEdge01 said:
Right now, I am mostly struggling with heat treating and tempering. My file blades came out ok looking but wouldn’t take an edge no matter how much I tried to sharpen it. I’m assuming the temper was too low. Anyway, any advice would be appreciated.
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Wait , did you annealed file before grinding and then HT knife or you grind them as they are from factory and then only temper them ? I m not sure I follow what you do ?
 
Natlek said:
Wait , did you annealed file before grinding and then HT knife or you grind them as they are from factory and then only temper them ? I m not sure I follow what you do ?
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I ground the file blade then tempered it twice in the oven at 400 degrees. I only heat treated the leaf spring blades. Sorry, I should’ve been more clear.
 
TheEdge01 said:
I ground the file blade then tempered it twice in the oven at 400 degrees. I only heat treated the leaf spring blades. Sorry, I should’ve been more clear.
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Well then this is weird
wouldn’t take an edge no matter how much I tried to sharpen it
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You should have no problem to sharpen them ? Are you sure that they are no case-hardened ?
 
TheEdge01 said:
I’m not sure. They were Nicholson files, but they may still be case hardened.
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You can easy check them before you start to work . First draw shape of knife you intend to make on file and then cut piece from file .Part of file around future tip of knife will be big enough for test .Put it in vise and hit with hammer .It should break like glass if it was good file for knife .Other way is to grind file on tip , grind deep at least half the thickness of file and try to scratch it with good file .If it was case hardened it will be soft in middle and easy to scratch... And now I realize that I never try to break case hardened file in vise ...I need to try to see how will break or maybe will bend :D
Here you can see how would look inside good file when you break it ...
0TBlBdn.jpg
 
That does look like a planer blade. it may be a carbon steel or a tool steel. If you test it by grinding on it you will get some indication of which it might be lots of sparks and deep orange or very white sparks could be a tool steel where as lots of sparks that are yellowish would be a lower alloy carbon steel, similar to those of the files. That piece of steel appears to have some corrosion (black color) suggests it might be a carbon steel.

How are you sharpening your blades? How thick is the edge you are trying to sharpen? What kind of grind do you put on your blades, flat grind, hollow grind, convex grind? that can affect the ability to put an edge on a blade.
 
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