General discussion > Contemporary Accoutrements
grinding
long carabine:
I am not sure where to post this so I'll try here. Anyone make a knife from a file by grinding? Is it hard and a waste of time or is it sort of easy and a good way to spend a Sat. afternoon? Tim
northmn:
Made a couple of knives by grinding. Threw one file into a wood fire for a while to try to soften it a little. Its a good way to spend more than one Sat afternoon. One knife I made was a little patch knife and I made during breaks where I worked using very large heavy duty grinders. It took a while. The other was a plug bayonet I made to go with a musket I also made. Threw that one into the fire. It was still very hard to work with. They stay sharp once you get them sharp, rust easily and are not even close to flexible. Some files have more than 100 points of carbon. To anneal one you have to let them cool in a medium like ashes for some time. They did not anneal by heating red hot and then letting air cool. It might wreck them as a file but they did not get soft by any means.
DP
Dphariss:
The best way is one of those wide flat belt sanders set horizontal with a coarse then finer belts gives very nice control. http://www.toolsnow.com/browse.cfm/4,146.html
Next would be a 2" high speed like we had at Shiloh. But this is a little expensive for most folks.
Very dead last would be a emery wheel grinder.
And a bucket of water with any of the above.
I would forge, file and/or sand then polish.
Dan
northmn:
If you use a belt sander buy an extra sanding belt or two.
DP
Rolf:
Check if your file is carbon steel. If it is , go for it. But , a some cheap files are case harden mild steel and useless as knife blades.
Best regards
Rolfkt
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