question about filet knives....

[oldold442]

i am visiting relatives in a couple of weeks, and thought that i may make a couple of filet knives for my bro-in-law, and nephew. they go on a yearly fishing trip in utah, i think. they are fly fishing. what would be a good size? how about the blade. is there anything i can use for the blade that i can get locally, like a hand saw blade, or something? can you cut it with a regular metal cutting bandsaw? any need for heat treating? thanks

 

[Tommegow]

I got a long piece of SawMill bandsaw that had kinked and been thrown away.
It tested to be 1070. It made decent fillet knives but they will rust and thin enough to bend
and stay bent with too much pressure. I have no feed back from the guys I gave them to though.
I still got it if you want some,free PM me. I cut out the profile, HTed it, then put an edge on it ,Home made micarta
and Voilà!

 

[Omega Leather Works]

I got a long piece of SawMill bandsaw that had kinked and been thrown away.
It tested to be 1070. It made decent fillet knives but they will rust and thin enough to bend
and stay bent with too much pressure. I have no feed back from the guys I gave them to though.
I still got it if you want some,free PM me. I cut out the profile, HTed it, then put an edge on it ,Home made micarta
and Voilà!

This right here is why I love these boards.

 

[John Andrews]

I made some out of blades for power hacksaws, worked good. I used Steratt and some generac ones that all worked good. The Steratts are not bi-metal, meaning you don't have layers of different steels. I am under the impression the Steratt blades are more L6 than anything.

Another thing, thay are HARD ( I think probably 70Rc or better) and will readily rust. Polishing amounts to using diamond compound for a mirror polish, at least with my making them. A mirror polish seems to hold off the rust factor much better.

Most of the grinding was done on a wheel grinder. The thicknesses of the big yellow painted Steratt blades are .088 and .100.

Drilling tang holes requires carbide bits.

Customers really like them because bones won't dull them.

In my earlier years I made lots of hunters out of the .100 blades and made really good money for them. Back then, the new Steratt power hacksaw blades from DoAll were about $35 each, pretty expensive. But, the used worn out blades given to me worked just as good. Back then (early 90's) I was paid $250-$500 for the mirror polished hacksaw blade hunters.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

A couple weeks is not much time to create two knives from scratch. Your best bet would be to order two trout blades from TKS or Jantz and make them up with Canvas micarta handles. You should be able to do the handle work in about two days. They come fully HT with cryo, and fully sharpened. You can even order a sheath for it. All the sheath needs is positioning the keeper snap and a finish or oil.
Stacy

 

[Omega Leather Works]

A couple weeks is not much time to create two knives from scratch. Your best bet would be to order two trout blades from TKS or Jantz and make them up with Canvas micarta handles. You should be able to do the handle work in about two days. They come fully HT with cryo, and fully sharpened. You can even order a sheath for it. All the sheath needs is positioning the keeper snap and a finish or oil.
Stacy

Not a half bad idea.

I have (if I do say so myself ) made some pretty nice knives (kitchen and steak knives) outta old files. If you are gonna try this buy Nicohlson (sp) files and remember they are heat treated so you are gonna go through some belts. I used a simple 1"X30" Delta grinder for these and I was carefull when it got to edge time to not burn off the HT (assuming these are not case hardened, I dunno...) and they hold a very nice long lasting edge. My wife loves em. I put up some white nailes in the cabinets to hang them on (they have small lanyards) and that way they can dry nicely after being cleaned and wiped off.

Good luck to ya, and post pics when you are done!