I am working on my first knife making project using a railroad spike and would like some suggestions for improvements on my current/planned process. Below I'll detail what I've done so far as well as what I'm planning for the rest of this and future projects. I welcome any constructive critiques!
Thus far I have the railroad spike knife shape forged out and the blade ground down to a very rough edge (around a 40 grit bevel). After watching a few videos I have decided to go ahead and perform an oil quench on the blade followed by a heat treat for an hour at 400 F.
After these steps I plan to add the fine edge to the blade through progressively higher grit sandpaper.
Once I'm happy with the edge I need to protect the blade from further rust. I have chosen to coat the blade in gun bluing. As best as I can tell, this means giving the blade a good coat and wiping off any excess.
A question I have is: do I need to do anything else, such as a coat of oil, to protect the blade and edge from rust? Or did the gun blue take care of that?
Thanks!