November 19, 20241 yr I know files have been used many, many times for making knives and other edged tools. Here's my main questions, 1. For using a single cut mill file, do you need to grind off the teeth before forging or can you just flatten them with the hammer? I know we'd want to avoid cold shuts or stress concentrations creating cracks during the heat treat. 2. What would you quench in? I'm thinking to make a crook knife and a carving adze (the kind you lash onto a branch handle). I've made a few knives successfully from a table saw blade with stock removal and a heat treat, and done some other beginner forge work but that's about it.
November 19, 20241 yr Good Morning, Files are mostly made from W1, that means water hardening. You can hammer the teeth in but that makes little cold shuts near the surface. Neil
November 19, 20241 yr A bit of an oversimplification. Files are made from a variety of steel alloys, including high carbon steel like W-1 and 1095 for the better ones as well as lower carbon alloys for those that are only case hardened. The former are great for knifemaking, but I would grind away teeth if you are just forging rather than forge welding up a billet (San Mai with a file core for example). As far as quenching, while W-1 may be tagged for a water quench, if you forge or grind down your billet to close to final crossection, I have found that cracking rate for a conventional quench in water is pretty high. I would consider either an interrupted quench or switching to a fast oil like Parks 50. In my experience 1095 also quenches more reliably in oil.
November 21, 20241 yr Author Sounds great, thanks guys. I've had a couple things crack in a water quench. I learned to quench thin stuff in oil first, and not to grind the edge down all the way to nearly sharp.
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