Files and Rasps for Blades

[Jan]

So you know that place!
   
Jan

[Mike Brubacher]

Come visit Jan. It's an interesting drive and would be happy to act as your personal tour guide.

[scott.livesey]

files and rasps are usually high carbon steel similar to 1095 or W1. that said, most companies will not tell exactly what they are made of. Is it steel that would make a good blade? sure. Is it worth the effort, considering you might mess up on heat treat? not for me. there is plenty of good knife steel available that can be heat treated in a 1600F furnace. go to Alpha Knife Supply and look. https://www.alphaknifesupply.com/shop/pr...-materials a piece 1/8" x 1 1/2" x 12" of 8670 or 15N20 or 80CrV2 or 52100 will be less than $6. the same heat treat works on all four steels. Place in preheated 1500F furnace. remove after ten minutes. quench in 100F degree canola oil. put in freezer for 1/2 hour. wipe off any oil. 350F oven for an hour. rinse in cold water and scrub with green scotch brite pad. 325F for an hour. should give you Rc 62-64. I am amazed at how locals here go ga-ga over knives made of railroad spikes or horseshoes and turn up their noses at similar knives made of O1 or 80CrV2.

[Bud]

Thanks so much guys and thanks to Scott for his post. You make it sound almost easy Scott. I'm torn between the smart thing and
the desire to make something out of what I already have. It's not about the money but the story and the history. These files come from my community and in some cases my own family. You don't honor your community by producing a piece of junk though. Maybe I can do something in between. Are you saying Scott that these old files can be annealed (I guess that's the right term) and then hardened and tempered again? I realize that it might be risky. A little risk keeps your heart pumping. My wife has an electric ceramic kiln. I think that thing will go up past 2000 degrees. Why wouldn't that work?

[scott.livesey]

will work just fine. heat kiln to 1250F, put the file(s) in, close it up and turn if off. leave door closed at least over night. when cool, steel should be soft enough to grind and shape. leave the edge about 1/32" or so. then put in 1500F furnace for 10 minutes, quench in canola, freezer for an hour, then temper

[Bud]

That is just way cool Scott! Sounds like baking a cake. I never baked a cake but I'm about to learn. Good news is I've got lots of files to practice on. Need to replace a heating element in the kiln and then going to give it a try. Thanks so much!

[Jan]

Come visit Jan. It's an interesting drive and would be happy to act as your personal tour guide.

Mike, thank you very much for your generous offer. I will report to you as soon as I arrive.

The Trinity site is in my mind associated with two names Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, and Richard Feynman, author of textbooks we used during my studies.

Oppenheimer had a ranch in New Mexico and loved horse riding here. As all famous physicists he was also a philosopher. He liked Hindu religion and read Bhagavad Gita in the original Sanskrit. Famous is his remark after the Trinity test: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

Feynman as a junior physicist was not central to the Manhattan project. He administered the computation group of "human computers". He received the Nobel Prize in Physics and became one of the best-known physicists in the world.

Jan

[Bubby]

I'm all in on this files to knives thing. I think that I must have a couple hundred myself. Hope you keep us all posted Bud. To Jan; we definitely took the cork out of the bottle down there in New Mexico. I've visited the site as well although it's not exactly on your way to anywhere. I guess you would have to say that the experience is sobering. If you ever take Mike up on his offer, I'm in.

[Jan]

Buddy, thanks for your comment. I hope that you have recognized from my posts that I have no doubt that the Trinity test was a significant milestone of the present epoch.

Jan