You are welcome. I got the idea from watching a wheelwright punch 1/4" diameter holes in some " tire " stock( 1/4 inch thick x 3" wide steel straps) after heating the ends over an open fire to red hot. He had a punch shaped Hoagie in his anvil, and a helper to hold the steel tire, while he gave each of two holes in the end a hard " whack" with a sledge hammer. Then the piece was turned over, and he whacked the Dimples that were sticking up from his early effort, and out popped a 1/4" diameter slug, and he had his holes for riveting the two ends of the tire together.
I figured that if he could punch a hole through that thick a piece of steel with only a couple of whacks with his sledge hammer on that punch, while the metal was red hot, I should be able to drill through that tang if it was red hot. I had returned to my local hardware store to replace a high carbon steel drill bit I had damaged, and then I bought two more bits, one with a carbide edge to it, to use as a last resort. I kept the two replacement bits, but took the carbide bit back for a refund. The clerk wanted to know how I succeeded, and after I told him what I wrote above, he thanked me and asked me permission to share that with other customers. Of course, I laughed, and gave him permission. He was greatly amused that a d#*n lawyer, dressed in suit and tie, was buying tools from him, and then figured out how to drill holes where they were not suppose to be drilled, and used a common, cheap, high carbon bit to do it!
I was going to put a very wet rag around the tang below my drill site on top of the vise, to keep the blade from heating up. But, I found out that the jaws acted as a heat sink, and the blade was not even warm to the touch after I finished drilling my hole and removed the blade from the heat, and the vise. I laid the finished blade down on a metal plate, and drilled the second tang in less time than it takes to write about it.
