Junk Files

[PitchyPine]

Must have some really junky files laying around, just stuck a few in the fire until they were red and one melted, couldn`t find any of it but the tang i was hanging on too :shake:
Left a couple nickolsons in beside the coals for a couple hours after heating red and when i tapped them with a hammer they broke in half. :shocked2:
Guess ya get what ya pay for in files, glad those were free.
So far i like working the spring steel the best. :applause:

 

[RickD]

LOL I`m about to try making a knife from a file and I read this

 

[PitchyPine]

Press forward bro, test it before ya get too far and see if it breaks. That new knife i made today out of a file worked out fine.

 

[LRB]

Do not heat files beyond red-orange. Or any other simple steel. If they go to yellow heat, the grain will grow past the stage of recovery, and you will be at the point of burning the carbon out of it. Pitchy, I have no idea why your file broke, but I would believe that it did not get hot enough. When I was making a lot of file blades, all I did was run a torch up both sides at the same time until the area turned red-orange, then move on up. When it cooled to room temp, I proceeded to make a blade of it. It is possible that your file had an unseen crack, and the heat caused it to expand and further weaken.

 

[PitchyPine]

Do not heat files beyond red-orange. Or any other simple steel. If they go to yellow heat, the grain will grow past the stage of recovery, and you will be at the point of burning the carbon out of it. Pitchy, I have no idea why your file broke, but I would believe that it did not get hot enough. When I was making a lot of file blades, all I did was run a torch up both sides at the same time until the area turned red-orange, then move on up. When it cooled to room temp, I proceeded to make a blade of it. It is possible that your file had an unseen crack, and the heat caused it to expand and further weaken.

These files must of been junk, i only heated to a red orange and the one just melted, couldn`t find any of it. Had four others in the fire and three of them broke with a light tap, the other i could hammer it in half circle so made a knife out of it. Until i find some better files i`m going to use the light buggy spring and forge some from hay rake teeth. Gotta keep moving and making.
Too all you guys that are professionals at this thanks for your advice and i by no means am i trying to show people how to build a knife the right or wrong way.
I`m just doing my thing, sharing with ya all and learning at the same time.

 

[Minuteman]

Hope that doesn't happento me I just bought a whole box of used files over the summer. The price was right even if half of them are junk . Cost a quarter for around forty files!!

 

[PitchyPine]

Now that was a buy. :thumbsup:

 

[Dallaman]

Pitchy Pine- What are you making out of hay rake teeth? If you have any pics I'd love to see what you're up to. Thanks

 

[44-henry]

I just pulled 40 assorted files from the heat treating oven a little while ago. One of the requirements in my 203 class is having the students construct a small patch knife from an old worn out file. We chop them down to 7" lengths in the chop saw, and wrap them in stainless steel heat treatment foil and place them in the furnace at about 1450 degrees for an hour and shut them off. Once they are cool the students will surface grind them to uniform thickness and than they put a template on them (varies depending on the type of file that was used) and than file and grind the profile, and than shape the blade. Heat treatment is relatively simple with this simple tool steel. We heat them up in the forge until a magnet no longer is attracted to them and than quench them in olive oil that was heated to around a 100 degrees. The trick is to go straight down in the oil with the cutting edge and move the blade up and down in a cutting motion, never side to side. The only area we harden is the blade and a tiny bit of the handle area. We follow this while the blade is still warm by a trip back into the heat treatment furnace at about 400 degrees for an hour. Afterwords the blade is polished (or sandblasted), wrapped in heavy cardboard, and a couple slabs of curley maple are epoxied into place, drilled for brass pins, and than profiled and finished. My students love this project and it does yield a pretty patch knife, I used the ones on the Track of the Wolf site as models. Don't be afraid of file steel, it does make a pretty good blade if you follow the correct procedure. Yes I know that most of the tool steels used in files are technically water hardening, but the oil seems to reduce the amount of warpage and breakage that we sometimes get when we go the water route. We generally use Nicholson files, but every now and than we do get the odd Chinese make in there too, haven't had any problems yet, but a furnace and some stainless steel foil does help a lot to keep things within a safe temperature range and reduce decarb and scale.

 

[PitchyPine]

I just pulled 40 assorted files from the heat treating oven a little while ago. One of the requirements in my 203 class is having the students construct a small patch knife from an old worn out file. We chop them down to 7" lengths in the chop saw, and wrap them in stainless steel heat treatment foil and place them in the furnace at about 1450 degrees for an hour and shut them off. Once they are cool the students will surface grind them to uniform thickness and than they put a template on them (varies depending on the type of file that was used) and than file and grind the profile, and than shape the blade. Heat treatment is relatively simple with this simple tool steel. We heat them up in the forge until a magnet no longer is attracted to them and than quench them in olive oil that was heated to around a 100 degrees. The trick is to go straight down in the oil with the cutting edge and move the blade up and down in a cutting motion, never side to side. The only area we harden is the blade and a tiny bit of the handle area. We follow this while the blade is still warm by a trip back into the heat treatment furnace at about 400 degrees for an hour. Afterwords the blade is polished (or sandblasted), wrapped in heavy cardboard, and a couple slabs of curley maple are epoxied into place, drilled for brass pins, and than profiled and finished. My students love this project and it does yield a pretty patch knife, I used the ones on the Track of the Wolf site as models. Don't be afraid of file steel, it does make a pretty good blade if you follow the correct procedure. Yes I know that most of the tool steels used in files are technically water hardening, but the oil seems to reduce the amount of warpage and breakage that we sometimes get when we go the water route. We generally use Nicholson files, but every now and than we do get the odd Chinese make in there too, haven't had any problems yet, but a furnace and some stainless steel foil does help a lot to keep things within a safe temperature range and reduce decarb and scale.

Hot Iron, I haven`t made anything from hay rake teeth yet. The ones that i`m thinking about are the long curved ones off from the old dump rakes, they`er bigger diamiter and i think would make a small knife. If i make one i`ll post pics of it.

I think i must of got that file that melted too hot because i think it was a Nicholson. I didn`t know about using a magnet to tell when the heat is right.
Thanks for the input Alexander.