Seeking info and photos of knives made of rasps

rhrocker

rhrocker

Joined
Jan 18, 2004
Messages
1,135
I'm interested in seeing knives or anything else as far as that goes, made of farriers horse shoeing rasps. I'm mostly interested in knives, but snakes, tools, etc would be good also. I've heard it's made of mostly mild steel that's then case hardened. I figure this is going to be like RR spikes, and there'll be several answers or versions of this. Good, that's what I'm looking for. If anyone knows of any links with pictures of anything made from them, from knives to spurs, I'd appreciate learning about it.
Thanks all !
 
I posted a picture of a rasp knife on this forum on Aug. 6, 2003. I did a search for posts under my name and found the picture, but I don't know how to move the picture to your post.
I don't know what kind of a rasp I used, it was given to me by a customer. I gave the rasp a heat treat like I use on 5168, and it hardened very nicely.
 
Robert,here is a hawk that i made from a rasp,they work quite well,
all rasps are not created equal,the ones i use are Bellota brand,they harden up very well,
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True, not all rasps are created equal. Some of the older ones found at yard sales and flea markets are 5165 or 5180.
 
Thanks guys, I remember both of these, but hadn't seen them in a long time. It's good to be able to look at them again. I'm wondering if a person forges a rasp that is case hardened, if it might be prone to cracking if quenched in cold oil (cold meaning just the current temp.) Is case hardening visible on the file like it is on say a firearm? That's a beautiful knife Tom. Did you leave some of the file lines on the other side? Tracy, did you forge weld the two ends together alone, or did you put some other steel in there as a core. In fact, thinking about it, maybe you doubled over each end first then did your forge weld?
 
Thanks Tracy, for posting the picture for me. I am not too computer literate or I would have done it myself.
Robert, to answer your question, the back of the rasp was very much like the front. The rasp indentations were not quite as large but in the finished knife both sides looked pretty much the same.
I don't know where the customer got the rasp. I think it was of good steel, as it was easy to harden.
 
Well, I haven't made a knife yet, but I did try my hand at a snake. It's a little harder than I thought it would be, with all the tapering towards the head, then tapering towards the tail, and folding up the tang to help make the head, etc. Anyway, here's my snake. I still have some work to do on it's head, which I'm going to fill in with my MIG to make it look a little better.

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And this picture shows a side view of my 500 pound Peter Wright that I just scored a few weeks ago!!!!!!!!!! 39" long, 6.5" face, and 19" tall. Ok, so maybe it isn't exactly 500 pounds, but 497.5 still isn't to bad.

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i've been wanting to try that for a while myself.I just got an armfull of old files rasps and other goodies at the local scrap yard. Robert may ask your teqnique and some good not to do tips?? would i be safe by guessing kind of an upset on the side to squish it to a round shape :confused: Nice work on that rattlesnake.
BTW sweeeeeet anvil !
 
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