Cobbler
Codger bodger
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Naughty!! But I like it.
- Thread starter h-dom
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bigegg
Scream Not Working Because Space Make Deaf
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I actually bought a "worktop" mini oven, with two hobs, at the bootie.
Only paid a fiver for it.
Incredibly useful in the shed: kydex + Heat treating + pizza in the oven.
Wax melter, boiling caustic for paint stripping, + kettle on the hob.
Or just leave the oven door open for a bit of heat.
<Daily reminder to myself: I *still* needto get the muffle furnace out of the car>
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
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Drill the holes after forging before quenching , let it cool naturally to hand hot & drill them ? Dot punching the holes whilst it's still red hot , then heat back up for hardening & tempering .
Think I'll rescue a few old file I binned yesterday .. didn't think of using them for blades ..but they might be alloy steel as they cam from Aldi a few years ago & got replaced with Lidl files yesterday .
hotponyshoes
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I am very much in favour of using bin stock whenever possible and I'm not knocking aldi/lidl tools but a handmade knife has got to be a couple of hours work at the very least.
I think you would have a much better chance of getting a decent result if you started with a known grade of steel.
Fair enough if you have 50 old files the same and you are making 100 knives from them, you can practice/adjust/refine the heat treat/tempering to get what you want.
If you have just spend 10hrs making one then you find it won't get sharp enough or it is not flexible enough, if you know the grade it's easy to find some pointers on how to change it for what you want and re-do it.
Generally most file steel should be ok for knives but many of the modern ones (especially mass produced) might be induction hardened rather than traditionally hardened, works fine as a file but not so good as a knife if you have ground away all the hard bit to make the knife from.
Files work well if forged. For stock removal methods there are probably better steels to use.
If you are local to me I have plenty of known grades of files and other odd bits of steel, feel free to pop round and grab a few to mess with.
I am not an expert at this sort of stuff so take my opinion for what is worth. Old files can be annealed (made softer) by heating to yellow hot and cooling down slowly, once shaped and sharpened, heat to cherry red and plunge into oil/water depending on the steel, that makes the steel very hard again and also brittle, then heat up to about 250C for quite a while and cool down slowly, that tempers the metal and reduces the brittleness whilst maintaining a slightly less hardness. There are a huge range of different steels and all will have their own special heat requirements on how they need to be heat treated to make them hard but not brittle. Hard part is working out what type of steel it is you have to start with.
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
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I haven't done it yet but the first thing I'll be doing is a spark test , if they aren't an inch and a half long whitish yellow to orange I'll not bother . I've got several half inch x 8 inch lengths off tool steel to have a play with , tempering them the old way with a red hot cast iron block and watching the colours flow ..like wot I woz taught back in 1966.
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
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Did a spark test in the retrieved 8" half round file , an 8 inch 5/16 round file.. they certainly looked promising nice big jack frost almost white sparks galore . Going through the cutlery draw a few weeks ago my wife decided the 35 yr old kitchen knife sharpening steel had seen better days so puchased a new kitchen devil sharpening steel .
I go the old sharpening steel , picked it out the scrap box when I did the other tests and " Yippee " I got some of the best sparks I've ever seen came off the grind stone . I should be able to make a couple of blades out of it eventually .
I go the old sharpening steel , picked it out the scrap box when I did the other tests and " Yippee " I got some of the best sparks I've ever seen came off the grind stone . I should be able to make a couple of blades out of it eventually .
It appears that most new files are case hardened so not much use for knife making. I am not sure of the best way to test with out annealing it, grinding the surface off a part of it, then heating and quenching it.
If you have successfully hardened it a file should not make an impression on it, it should sound like glass when filing it.
I would advise you to buy a piece of O1 tool steel (O is for oil quench) from the likes of ebay for a few quid and have a go at doing something you like with it. Don't buy anything thicker than 5mm as it makes a heavy knife or hours tring to remove material to thin it.
Couple of really good tutorials on Youtube, search for a guy called Walter Sorrels, I really like his videos and his attitude. Keep the pics coming!
If you have successfully hardened it a file should not make an impression on it, it should sound like glass when filing it.
I would advise you to buy a piece of O1 tool steel (O is for oil quench) from the likes of ebay for a few quid and have a go at doing something you like with it. Don't buy anything thicker than 5mm as it makes a heavy knife or hours tring to remove material to thin it.
Couple of really good tutorials on Youtube, search for a guy called Walter Sorrels, I really like his videos and his attitude. Keep the pics coming!
hotponyshoes
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They are great for knife making, you just need to heat treat them.
Any decent branded file will be fine.
The unbranded files made on mass for lidl sets would at least want testing before use.
Basically if you bought it new and it's gone blunt after a couple of weeks it's not going to make a great knife is it?
If it's been handed down from your grandad and is still removing steel it will be good for making any other sort of cutting edge out of.
Case hardened ones would be ok if you can forge them in a coke fire. Not a lot of use if you are making it all with an angle grinder as all the hard bit will get ground away.
I would not say O1 is better all round. Both have advantages/disadvantages.
I stand by my earlier comment, you will probably get a better result using a lower grade of steel if you know the grade and can heat treat it correctly. Better than using a really good steel but not knowing what exactly it is and guessing at the heat treat.
h-dom
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Seven millimetres!That's not a knife it's a hatchet!
yeah, it is quite thick, but at least I won’t break it
Parm
Respect The Sound System
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That’s come out good. I like the idea of a thick heavy knife
outofthefire
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There can be a huge difference in temperature depending on the ambient light in the room, when it looses it's magnetism can be a rule of thumb or poor a bit of salt on the blade it melts at about the right temperature. I'd never quench anything blade thin in water, and 250 is a bit hot for most knives i'd usually go for 180 - 200. You really need to know what steel you're working with to be sure though the stainless I'm using at the moment needs to be quenched at about 1250 centigrade.
h-dom
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I’m on it today
Trying to avoid the heat treat after so didn’t anneal the file. It was so hard I had to break out the 9” grinder to even cut out the blanks. I had success drilling the last one by annealing the tang with a torch, so I have now done the same with these, just waiting for them to cool to start drilling, then I’ll grind the bevels, acid etch and stonewash. Hopefully get them all finished off today
Trying to avoid the heat treat after so didn’t anneal the file. It was so hard I had to break out the 9” grinder to even cut out the blanks. I had success drilling the last one by annealing the tang with a torch, so I have now done the same with these, just waiting for them to cool to start drilling, then I’ll grind the bevels, acid etch and stonewash. Hopefully get them all finished off today
outofthefire
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Heat treating really isn't hard when you get your head round it, and is a fundamental part of making any tool out of steel. The beauty is if you get it wrong heat your steel up a couple of times letting it cool slowly to normalise it and you can just try again.
h-dom
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I have done it a couple of times using lump wood charcoal and a blower with success but I really need to invest in a propane forge, once my workshop is built I will do but for now this is the best I can do.
We have had these discussions previously
A good source of info is Sandvik (usually all stainless)
https://www.materials.sandvik/en-gb...ip-products/knife-steel/sandvik-knife-steels/
A good source of info is Sandvik (usually all stainless)
https://www.materials.sandvik/en-gb...ip-products/knife-steel/sandvik-knife-steels/
