Actually its not "file work" I preffer to carve the spines of my blades AFTER heat treatment. I use various accesories for a flex shaft rotary tool and cut the hardened steel. I feel working it in the hardened state, the rotary tool cuts much smoother and tends to dig in a lot less than it would in soft annealed stock..
On to the how to's, that pattern is done with a 1/2 inch sanding drum with 50 and 120 grit bands, a thin non reinforced cut off wheel, and a couple of those little sanding discs, the 50 grit drum cuts are centered every 3/8ths of an inch and are cut about 3/32 from the opposite side. Then the cuttoff wheel is used to take out the stock for the little "branch" and to take out a little material for the blend. Then I switch to a 120 grit drum and sand the scratches the 50 grit monster leaves, and that is also rolled back over the back side of the depression to complete the blend on the back side of the dip. The last step is to use the sanding disc to clean up the cuts above the branch. And if you arent going to fill it, sand as needed!
The nice thing about this patern/proccess is its FAST, on a normal 8 inch fixed blade I can get all the cuts into the spine in about 5 minutes, with files I would be there all day...
I never asked but my thoughts were that this meathod would cut down on stress risers in the steel, but would also be sorta touchy about overheating the spine area of the blade when doing the work??? Am I crazy or what?
Thanks for all the compliments, and I hope I described it so some of you can duplicate it!
Alan Folts...
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If a Man talks in the forest, and there is no Woman around to hear him, is he still wrong?
