My son is getting into forging blades - he is asking for resources...

[PPatch]

... on filing and decorating knife blades. Anyone know of websites or books related to blade finishing as far as file patterns and the like?

Thank you.

dp

[rich pierce]

I will look at my old Muzzle Blasts and Muzzleloader articles to see if there is something useful.

[John Archer]

Joe Keeslar wrote a good book called "Handles and Guards" He is an American Bladesmith Society Master Smith. The book covers a fair amount of filework as well as wire inlay and basically everything to do with making a fancy handle and installing it on a blade.

John.

[Artificer]

Do you mean the decorative filework on the backs of blades, for example as was found on Scottish Dirks and Sgian Dubh’s?  If so, this is often or usually called “jimping.”  It is a term used by Sheffield knife makers going back to the early 1800’s.  The origin of the term comes from Scotland and Northern England.  Scroll down to the bottom of this link for info on the origin of the word:
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/100850/what-does-jimping-mean

Except for Scottish or extremely expensive knives in the 18th century, I don’t believe jimping was common and would have been downright rare.  Jimping on Scottish knives and dirks was pretty rudimentary in this period.  Dirks made from cut down sword blades generally were not jimped, but those originally made as knives did have as did some of the fancier and smaller Sgian Dubh and Sgian Achlais knives, THOUGH not common on the knives of the lower classes.  19th century jimping designs included “rope work” and “arrowhead” patterns.  

18th Century Scottish Dirk with more filework than common:
http://www.scottishsword.com/jacobitedirk1.html

More common, shall I suggest “restrained” amount of Jimping:
http://www.antiqueswordsonline.com/new-c-1750-scottish-highlanders-staghorn-dirk-new

Here is a demonstration of later file work:


Another demonstration of later file work:


Gus

[PPatch]

Thanks everyone. Great info, I have passed it on to the young man.

dp

[blaksmth]

 I have a book called THE MASTER BLADESMITH  advanced studies in steel   By Jim Hrisoulas 
Mine is a paladin press book ISBN 0-87364-612-6

 This book has some really good instructions in tempering  many different types of steel and all steps into knife making  well worth the $ 

[PPatch]

Thanks blaksmth - I found it online as a free download in PDF format.

dp

[blaksmth]

PPatch I believe that book is worth its weight in gold I make blades out of leaf spring and the tempering process that was suggested works really well,.

 If your son is heat treating blades some stainless steel foil is a good thing to have to keep the scale off the blades ,it keeps the air off the blade and can be reused many times