[nme]

Fileknife made of a Nicholsonfile, oak handle with copper pin.

 

[Ordo]

Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

 

[SLING-N-SHOT]

Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

You have to heat it up / anneal it so it's softer, workable steel again, then re-temper it by heating up and quenching in oil once done shaping

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[MOJAVE MO]

That is a good looking knife!

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[skarrd]

definatley a good looking knife,and what Sling N Shot said

 

[Slide-Easy]

That is a beautiful piece, I would love to have it.

 

[nme]

Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

You have to heat it up / anneal it so it's softer, workable steel again, then re-temper it by heating up and quenching in oil once done shaping
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/quote]

[quote name="Ordo" post="1496456" timestamp="1613606448"]Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

I just annealed, because its is hardened already.
3 times an hour in the oven at 200 C or 400 F
Than its stil hard enough for a knife and and easier to sharpen and just to drill.

 

[Trap1]

Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

You have to heat it up / anneal it so it's softer, workable steel again, then re-temper it by heating up and quenching in oil once done shaping
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[quote name="Ordo" post="1496456" timestamp="1613606448"]Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

I just annealed, because its is hardened already.
3 times an hour in the oven at 200 C or 400 F
Than its stil hard enough for a knife and and easier to sharpen and just to drill.

[/QUOTE]

Sorry NME,

I'ts a nice looking knife! But..

True annealing carbon steel requires much higher (x4+) temps than 200°C, also this can be said for normalizing process (both use different methods.) When heating to 200°C 3 times, all you are doing is knocking down the tempered hardness by a few points with minimal structural change! Files are brittle, usually tempered to 59-62 HRC, I've broken many! "Old" files are a good source of quality carbon steel but I agree with Darrell's method above & I dont believe that 3hrs in an oven would be enough to produce a good strong working knife...to be honest I think knives made from files incorrectly would be dangerous in use.

 

[nme]

Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

You have to heat it up / anneal it so it's softer, workable steel again, then re-temper it by heating up and quenching in oil once done shaping
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/quote]

Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

I just annealed, because its is hardened already.
3 times an hour in the oven at 200 C or 400 F
Than its stil hard enough for a knife and and easier to sharpen and just to drill.

Sorry NME,

I'ts a nice looking knife! But..

True annealing carbon steel requires much higher (x4+) temps than 200°C, also this can be said for normalizing process (both use different methods.) When heating to 200°C 3 times, all you are doing is knocking down the tempered hardness by a few points with minimal structural change! Files are brittle, usually tempered to 59-62 HRC, I've broken many! "Old" files are a good source of quality carbon steel but I agree with Darrell's method above & I dont believe that 3hrs in an oven would be enough to produce a good strong working knife...to be honest I think knives made from files incorrectly would be dangerous in use.[/quote]

You're right.. It was not annealing but tempering what i did..
So i tempered the steel till it was between yellow and blue and let it cool down again, i put it on my anvil and stroke it with an heavy hammer to see if its stil brittle (was not) and drilled a hole in it. First 2 mm with a hss drillbit and the rest (5mm) with a masonrydrilbit
This is guaranteed a strong knife and not brittle.
The difference is that a made the knife from tempered steel..

 

[SLING-N-SHOT]

Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

You have to heat it up / anneal it so it's softer, workable steel again, then re-temper it by heating up and quenching in oil once done shaping
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/quote]

Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

I just annealed, because its is hardened already.
3 times an hour in the oven at 200 C or 400 F
Than its stil hard enough for a knife and and easier to sharpen and just to drill.

Sorry NME,

I'ts a nice looking knife! But..

True annealing carbon steel requires much higher (x4+) temps than 200°C, also this can be said for normalizing process (both use different methods.) When heating to 200°C 3 times, all you are doing is knocking down the tempered hardness by a few points with minimal structural change! Files are brittle, usually tempered to 59-62 HRC, I've broken many! "Old" files are a good source of quality carbon steel but I agree with Darrell's method above & I dont believe that 3hrs in an oven would be enough to produce a good strong working knife...to be honest I think knives made from files incorrectly would be dangerous in use.[/quote]

You're right.. It was not annealing but tempering what i did..
So i tempered the steel till it was between yellow and blue and let it cool down again, i put it on my anvil and stroke it with an heavy hammer to see if its stil brittle (was not) and drilled a hole in it. First 2 mm with a hss drillbit and the rest (5mm) with a masonrydrilbit
This is guaranteed a strong knife and not brittle.
The difference is that a made the knife from tempered steel..[/quote]

Tempering is the process to harden steel.

Annealing is the process to soften the steel to make it more workable.

A file is already tempered steel, so very hard and very brittle...... that's why a file is able to cut softer metal.

You have to anneal the file to soften the metal enough to make it workable again, then when you're done shaping your blade and possibly sharpening, you re-temper the steel by heating it red hot until it becomes non-magnetic, then quenching in oil to make it hard again, and raise carbon content.

Once you have the file or metal re-tempered,Then you can put it in the oven for a bit as you described to anneal it and get the steel a bit softer so it is not brittle and it's easier to sharpen.

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[nme]

Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

You have to heat it up / anneal it so it's softer, workable steel again, then re-temper it by heating up and quenching in oil once done shaping
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/quote]

Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

I just annealed, because its is hardened already.
3 times an hour in the oven at 200 C or 400 F
Than its stil hard enough for a knife and and easier to sharpen and just to drill.

Sorry NME,

I'ts a nice looking knife! But..

True annealing carbon steel requires much higher (x4+) temps than 200°C, also this can be said for normalizing process (both use different methods.) When heating to 200°C 3 times, all you are doing is knocking down the tempered hardness by a few points with minimal structural change! Files are brittle, usually tempered to 59-62 HRC, I've broken many! "Old" files are a good source of quality carbon steel but I agree with Darrell's method above & I dont believe that 3hrs in an oven would be enough to produce a good strong working knife...to be honest I think knives made from files incorrectly would be dangerous in use.[/quote]

You're right.. It was not annealing but tempering what i did..
So i tempered the steel till it was between yellow and blue and let it cool down again, i put it on my anvil and stroke it with an heavy hammer to see if its stil brittle (was not) and drilled a hole in it. First 2 mm with a hss drillbit and the rest (5mm) with a masonrydrilbit
This is guaranteed a strong knife and not brittle.
The difference is that a made the knife from tempered steel..[/quote]

Tempering is the process to harden steel.

Annealing is the process to soften the steel to make it more workable.

A file is already tempered steel, so very hard and very brittle...... that's why a file is able to cut softer metal.

You have to anneal the file to soften the metal enough to make it workable again, then when you're done shaping your blade and possibly sharpening, you re-temper the steel by heating it red hot until it becomes non-magnetic, then quenching in oil to make it hard again, and raise carbon content.

Once you have the file or metal re-tempered,Then you can put it in the oven for a bit as you described to anneal it and get the steel a bit softer so it is not brittle and it's easier to sharpen.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/quote]

So what i said first was right alright????
So i annealed a file (hardened steel) to make it softer, i did that by heating it up to 200C.at least 3 times an hour till the color was between yellow and blue (more or less 60 rc) it was rather hard to drill with a hss drillbit.
That is the steel i made the knife from.. Rather hard steel..

 

[SLING-N-SHOT]

Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

You have to heat it up / anneal it so it's softer, workable steel again, then re-temper it by heating up and quenching in oil once done shaping
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/quote]

Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

I just annealed, because its is hardened already.
3 times an hour in the oven at 200 C or 400 F
Than its stil hard enough for a knife and and easier to sharpen and just to drill.

Sorry NME,

I'ts a nice looking knife! But..

True annealing carbon steel requires much higher (x4+) temps than 200°C, also this can be said for normalizing process (both use different methods.) When heating to 200°C 3 times, all you are doing is knocking down the tempered hardness by a few points with minimal structural change! Files are brittle, usually tempered to 59-62 HRC, I've broken many! "Old" files are a good source of quality carbon steel but I agree with Darrell's method above & I dont believe that 3hrs in an oven would be enough to produce a good strong working knife...to be honest I think knives made from files incorrectly would be dangerous in use.[/quote]

You're right.. It was not annealing but tempering what i did..
So i tempered the steel till it was between yellow and blue and let it cool down again, i put it on my anvil and stroke it with an heavy hammer to see if its stil brittle (was not) and drilled a hole in it. First 2 mm with a hss drillbit and the rest (5mm) with a masonrydrilbit
This is guaranteed a strong knife and not brittle.
The difference is that a made the knife from tempered steel..[/quote]

Tempering is the process to harden steel.

Annealing is the process to soften the steel to make it more workable.

A file is already tempered steel, so very hard and very brittle...... that's why a file is able to cut softer metal.

You have to anneal the file to soften the metal enough to make it workable again, then when you're done shaping your blade and possibly sharpening, you re-temper the steel by heating it red hot until it becomes non-magnetic, then quenching in oil to make it hard again, and raise carbon content.

Once you have the file or metal re-tempered,Then you can put it in the oven for a bit as you described to anneal it and get the steel a bit softer so it is not brittle and it's easier to sharpen.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/quote]

So what i said first was right alright
So i annealed a file (hardened steel) to make it softer, i did that by heating it up to 200C.at least 3 times an hour till the color was between yellow and blue (more or less 60 rc) it was rather hard to drill with a hss drillbit.
That is the steel i made the knife from.. Rather hard steel..[/quote]

Go back to what [mention]Trap1 [/mention] mentioned about annealing.

200 degrees Celsius equates to just shy of 400 degrees Fahrenheit, which is not a high enough temperature to truly anneal steel as hard as a file is tempered at.

You would probably have to heat the file to Cherry red ( maybe 1300 degrees F ? ) holding at that high temp for a bit, and then let it slowly cool / normalize at room temperature before the file would be softened enough to work and shape / drill it, etc.

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[Trap1]

Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

You have to heat it up / anneal it so it's softer, workable steel again, then re-temper it by heating up and quenching in oil once done shaping
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Beautiful. I'm curious: how do you sharpen a file knife? Cause it's so hard.

I just annealed, because its is hardened already.
3 times an hour in the oven at 200 C or 400 F
Than its stil hard enough for a knife and and easier to sharpen and just to drill.

Sorry NME,

I'ts a nice looking knife! But..

True annealing carbon steel requires much higher (x4+) temps than 200°C, also this can be said for normalizing process (both use different methods.) When heating to 200°C 3 times, all you are doing is knocking down the tempered hardness by a few points with minimal structural change! Files are brittle, usually tempered to 59-62 HRC, I've broken many! "Old" files are a good source of quality carbon steel but I agree with Darrell's method above & I dont believe that 3hrs in an oven would be enough to produce a good strong working knife...to be honest I think knives made from files incorrectly would be dangerous in use.

You're right.. It was not annealing but tempering what i did..
So i tempered the steel till it was between yellow and blue and let it cool down again, i put it on my anvil and stroke it with an heavy hammer to see if its stil brittle (was not) and drilled a hole in it. First 2 mm with a hss drillbit and the rest (5mm) with a masonrydrilbit
This is guaranteed a strong knife and not brittle.
The difference is that a made the knife from tempered steel..

[/QUOTE]

Hi NME,

Thanks for explaining further! Heating 230-320°C (yellow/straw-blue) + holding times would certainly bring hardness down & from your testing reduce brittleness.

Cheers

 

[nme]

Next time ill explain better and try to be clearer as english isnt my mother language.
My next project is a small edc tantoostyle knife made of a hss circular metalsawblade.