I have made my first knife from an old Royal bastard file. I cant get it sharp. I think its too hard but i dont know any help?

Here it is next to my Ruko  mines the not so good lookin one.

Not alot for us to go by here..wot kind of steel is it,,? Did you grind to shape? did you forge it,,,how did you heat treat it...?

Why do you think it is too hard?,,help us help you...

well honestly i dont know? I think it is carbon steel i cant find any info about the file. I did grind it. I tried to heat it with an electric heat gun and it turned blue. then i put it in a toaster oven at 400 for an hour did that twice. I did every thing with out reseaching it first. 

okay, to harden it you have to heat it till non magnetic, let it cool slowly in a banked fire full of ash and coals. Heat till non magnetic again then since it is a file quickly quench in warm oil(canola or olive), congrats it is now hardened and you have also re-leaved the stress from grinding it.

AFTER this you put it in the oven at 400 for at least on cycle of an hour, I do it twice.

Only then will it hold a decent edge by being hardened and tempered properly.

400C is close to melting, and way too bit hot for a temper, unless it is H13? and most home ovens wont go that high.  325F makes more sence. which I think is about 160C

Who said 400C?? Aden said, "AFTER this you put it in the oven at 400 for at least on cycle of an hour..." Given that he is referring to tempering, I assumed he did, in deed mean 400F. The other clue was "oven" You know of many ovens that reach over 750F (400C)? :D

 

 

 

Perhaps you missed that Mr Cassidy who said 400,  is from OZ ? last I checked they use the metric system.  My ceramic oven goes a lot hotter

I think Steve was just pointing out that the devil is in the details and not many were provided.  All of the nearly 200 other countries that are on this site read 400 as 400C and not 400F  which is why I try to use degF after a number in my posts mentioning temps.

 

Doing stuff BEFORE you do your research is throwing away time and money.  Your description of what you did is how to SOFTEN a blade after hardening.  Drawing temper to a blue is pretty soft for a knife---in the 500's degF so the soaking at 400 degF was pretty useless as the highest temp in tempering is the controlling value.

 

You can make knives from files without having to reharden them by taking them as they come: hard and brittle and drawing them to the temper you want them to end up with and then working  THE METAL COLD; never let it heat up enough to turn colour.

 

As it stands you need to normalize, harden and then temper that blade and if it's already edged it may crack in hardening.

 

If you live in the USA you should be able to ILL "The Complete Bladesmith", Hrisoulas, at your local public library.

 

(see how many questions have a location function?  why we suggest you edit your profil to give a GENERAL Location)