Illerob

On 7/16/2014 at 4:16 PM, Jack-O-Lantern said:

If you use charcoal and have to get store bought then do not use bricket charcoal. Use natural wood chunk charcoal. I recommend royal oak brand. The other stuff is like a spark fountain and dos'nt heat the metal very well.

Thats it guys. Any tips would be appreciated. Good luck.

Terms corrected from "Coal" to "charcoal" because they are not the same thing, also edited for language violation

I just watched a video on you tube, specifically said to use briquettes they were of much more uniform heat. I do know that royal oak gets much hotter. That seems to be my major concern, producing enough heat. What is your feeling on that matter. Enough heat is my concern, would the un even heat matter to me? Not so long as it was higher temp resulting. IMHO

On 2/15/2010 at 8:18 AM, Sam Thompson said:

You will never get a perfect finish with a hammer but, as has been suggested, a smooth hammer and anvil and brushing off the scale will help. make sure that all of the blade is heated in the heart of the fire so that oxygen can't get at it from top or bottom.
To achieve a reasonably smooth surface you should keep peening the blade on the final heat until it's pretty much black to take out the dings and then vigorously brush it as you plunge it into the water; this helps to blow off the scale and leave an even coating. Before filing pickle the whole thing in the concoction of your choice (I use brick cleaner)to clean off the scale, which is harder than the file. Draw file to get the finest finish.
The swords that I have made for re-enactors have been specified as EN5 which is a spring steel; insurance companies don't like the idea of flying chips of metal and the serrated edges that result. They also consider an edge thinner than 1/8'' to be too sharp.

The scale that spoke of, I had heated some files with hope of making a knife,. Ihad read that files were being made in Mexico, Brazil etc. And were case hardened. Like you said the scale is very hard. Which further led me to believe it was the carbon outer layer of case hardening. Which after your mention of the scale, I see that my assumption is incorrect. What is the scale? does it come from the knife? Like rust? Would it change weight of the knife even tiny amount? Thanks for your time. The files were what started my interest in knife making. And they made sharp cutting implement be stretching it a bit to call them knives.