Subject: Re: Tool Steel

From: "Franklyn Garland" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 08:55:33 +0000

On  7 Jul 96 at 10:12, TOMBGUARD wrote <snip-snip>

> I am just learning about the high carbon steels, but would the
> Nicholson files not be brittle if they were just worked without
> being normalized or annealed, or is this taken for granted here. 

Even if you are going to forge a blade from an old file, it is a good 
idea to at least normalize it before you start pounding.  It has 
never happenend to me, but I have heard of folks who developed cracks 
when they didn't do this.  Since I forge all my blades, my usual 
method is to get the whole file hot (red to orange), then pull it back and heat just 
the section I am going to work on.  Haven't had a failure yet.

> Like I said I am new at this and I am in the process of being taught
> how to make my first knife.  I am to the filing and shaping point
> after having forged it out of a small piece of truck spring and
> normalizing it three times.

If you are filing the blade out you may have gotten better luck if 
you had just annealed it once.  I am not certain how soft normalizing 
X3 will make the material (there are others on this list more 
qualified to answer that than I) but next time just heat the sucker 
up to near critical and then bury it sand, wood ash, or vermiculite 
and let it cool vveeerryyy slowly.  Vermiculite seems to work best.

Good luck with your first knife!!!  It's an addicting Hobby!!!

=================================================
Franklyn D. Garland                         
The Celtic Knot Forge                       
[email-masked]                                 
http://www.mcs.net/~frnklyn/homepage/
For Public PGP key, finger [email-masked]
=================================================

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From: Jim McCarty <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 08 Jul 1996 16:34:13 -0500

Franklyn Garland wrote:
> idea to at least normalize it before you start pounding. 

Also a good idea to grind off the file marks as these can turn into 
cold shuts and cracks about the time you are done. I like to leave 
them on the top of the blade though to show where the steel came from. 
Also, I saw Bob Patrick demo welding a piece of file to a piece of 
mild steel. He got the file only to orange heat and barely tapped it 
to weld. Then he showed us what happened when you get it too hot or 
hit it too hard -- sent us all scurrying for cover as the steel 
exploded into a million pieces of shrapnel.

I have an article in an old BAM newsletter on making blades from 
files. It mentioned what others have said about new files being case 
hardened. I will dig this one out and post it -- lots of good info.

-- 
Jim McCarty
Father Helias Forge
Taos, MO
Editor Rural Missouri Magazine
Newsletter editor, Blacksmiths Association of Missouri

³Foolish consistencies are the hobgoblins of little minds³

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From: "Steven O. Smith" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 15:52:31 MDT

> Also a good idea to grind off the file marks as these can turn into=20
> cold shuts and cracks about the time you are done. 

You can also encourage scale; the file teeth will scale away pretty
quickly if you are doing much forging on the blade. 

--
Steven O. Smith
[email-masked]

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From: George Ezell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 04:42:30 -0500

> them on the top of the blade though to show where the steel came from.

I must agree on grinding off the file marks...They become stress risers
in a finished knife.