Tempering A File Knife

Okay, I couldn't stand it. Just walked down to the shop and did a quick rough shaping of the handle. I'm officially in love now

 
Bighaze51 said:
It's nice to know there's other people crazy about knives nearby. I'm about 15 minutes outside of lexington.

So here is my progress so far. I picked up some 40 grit belts and they are working nicely. This steel is HARD so I'm definitely going to cook this one in the oven a bit. I've almost got my flat grind done but it still needs a little stock removal before moving to finer grit belts. I cut the ruler guards off to see how I looks and so far I'm happy with the progress. This one is going to be sweet. My buddy has a bunch of walnut scraps he's going to give me for handle scales too. I'm excited

Click to expand...

I have 3 grinders a kmg a bader and a 1x42 viel grinder an atlas mini forge, assorted anvils, an old coal forge, many hammers and tongs. also a suggestion on the scales, if it were me I would use bone, even though I use wood for others mine are ivory, bone, mop, or a combo of one of the above with wood. the bone looks nice on the style of the knife. run three temper cycles with cool down between to room temp, shoot for straw color on the edge.yellow isn't hot enough and blue is too hot. check around almost all custom makers will recommend two or three temper cycles. remember files are brittle in their native state.
 
Okay, here is another update. I've got the main bevel where I want it now. It's mor of a semi convex flat grind. :). I haven't tempered it yet so it's still at full hardness. I've sharpened the edge and did a temporary handle wrap so I can experiment with it at work tomorrow. But so far this thing is bad!! The main blade face is sanded to 400 grit on my sander and buffed on my buffing wheel. I want to experiment to see if the edge will chop and if so how bad it does. I've sharpened it on my waterstones up to 12k and it's scary sharp. I figure this will be a nice little experiment before I finish the knife out completely. I've ordered some black micarta slabs for the scales. I believe this one is going to be a keeper

 
Nice! Try a dagger next.

 
Here's another.

[video=youtube;fZhJvJwjpQM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZhJvJwjpQM[/video]
 
Okay, here is a little teaser shot I took for you. I decided to go with black canvas micarta for my scales. That's why I haven't posted in a few days, I was waiting for my slabs to come in. So, the came in today. I got the holes drilled in it, pins cut and everything epoxied and clamped. This I think is going to be beautiful. I've done some "decent" custom work before but I believe this one is definitely going to be something g to be proud of. The only thing that sucks is now I have to wait for the epoxy to cure. Hopefully I'll have some finished pictures to show off tomorrow. :)
And please pay no attention to my mess in the background. I also had to get Christmas decorations down from the attic. Busy day

 
Ladies and gentlemen, here she is. About as finished as it's going to get. It can use a little fine tuning but I'm very pleased with the outcome. I sanded it up to 800 grit and then polished on the buffing wheel. Tight cloth with green compound and then loose cloth with a little bit of white. Final polish with mothers mag and aluminum polish.





And here is a shot with it next to my izula for a better size reference

 
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