LeftHandedForge

Thanks everyone for the helpful tips! I plan to do a lot more research within this site to get some more specific and accurate information, I was hoping to quickly address some specific issues I had. I realize that making knives from RR spikes is horribly inefficient as far as good quality goes, but I'm mostly focusing on gaining experience on the different aspects of the whole process and less on the final quality of the knife dependent on the material used. Thanks again

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!