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I'm in the Air Force 23 years and have a friend that worked sheet metal and fabrication also in the Air Force who suggested using a file to make a straight razor. I know it would be a lot of grinding and I would have to keep the heat down but I think I might try this.
I was wanting any tips from the pros before I started, any help would be appreciated.
Check out this thread http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...e-tonight.html and this one
http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...nd-effort.html and one more http://straightrazorpalace.com/forge...eck-knife.html
Never tried it myself so I cant help too much sorry.
Grant
Thanks for the links, I am defanitly going to give this a shot!Quote:
Originally Posted by baldy
Definitely or defiantly will both be required! :D
I will attempt it with both in mind! I'll post pics at a later date.Quote:
Originally Posted by randydance062449
Wow, this is slow work. I dunk the file in water as soon as I feel it getting hot before any discoloration. I am working without gloves so the heat doesn't sneak up on me. All I have is a drill press with a sanding drum so it's going pretty slow. I might be done by christmas.
This is what leads to Tool Acquistion Disorder. And Heat Treatment Process Disorder... :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Mastershake
Your methods are sound for what you intend to do with the tools you are using. Yes, they are limiting and you should go slow. If patiently is painful...it's close to being right. Using file steel is perfectly appropriate for your project and by the time it's done, you will feel like you earned something. As the blade thins, be even more careful about heat. Thin material can heat very quickly. Faster even than you can respond to keep it cool, and you might think getting off the grinder is good enough but the heat can still be rising (lag) in the material.
If the heat colors the material...well, there's always HTPD. I'll gladly pass on that disease. :)
Just a comment, Old files are good! Newer files are sometimes made by a different process which surface hardens a poorer grade of steel.
Just something I read a couple years ago. Probably name brands are best. I have not made a file steel tool in years, so I don't know from my own experiences.
Respectfully
~Richard
Now your beginning to understand why steel is annealed (softened) before grinding. :D
WOW!!! i was used for a example!!!!
actual shaping time for mine were in the 1-1 1/2 hour range...... you need a better grinder,......
its not necessarily when you feel heat that you cool it....... its when it feels like its fixing to burn you......
i used a normal bench grinder and a belt sander to shape the 2 examples you saw.......... i hope your attempt makes you as happy as mine have made me......
be careful... wear eye protection.... go to harbor freight and get you that bench grinder...
Randy's point is well taken. Steel without heat treatment can have anything happen to it and you won't care as much. But after heat treatment, you're working on an object that is close to finished. Starting over on a very thin edge leaves even less room for correction, IF it survives the next cycle through the hot zone. Most will potato chip and become two sizes smaller (8/8 is now 6/8). Or if your tools mean using fire to heat treat, there will be a lot of scale to remove as well. Cleaning all that up, may leave you with no option but to make a frameback out of what's left.
If you're not doing your own heat treatment, you just cost yourself some money in time/postage and another cycle in the furnace.
Then get used to being an example. :) When the steel is hot enough to feel like it's burning your fingers...it's already too late. The heat can still be rising in the material, and fast enough that you can't reach the slack tub where the cooler water is in time to stop the damage to the heat treatment. You may be working the spine, "I was no where near the edge..", and that heat can sweep into the thin sections and you'll know the heartbreak. :( Especially if you can't do your own heat treatment, 'cause that blade is toast and all your work starts again.Quote:
Originally Posted by paco664
For beginners, I'd recommend and repeat, just feeling warm is when to start moving to the water. Don't get me wrong. I admire daring and heavy calloused fingers. But you will get tired of heartbreak fairly quickly, especially when a customer is waiting on a blade to get done and you're on the clock.
Being successful on a grinder means anticipating mistakes before they happen and then not making them. Fixing things after a mistake is a miserable existence.
A beginner may not realise that the time to be very careful indeed about heating through grinding, is when the blade is being ground after heat treatment. In grinding a piece of annealed steel which will be hardened afterwards, discoloration is acceptable. As to whether you can do all the required grinding before heat treatment, the answer is a maybe, but it is more likely with a flat or nearly flat ground wedge razor than with hollow ground, and plenty of extra steel should be left on the latter. It is inadvisable to try to harden a thin section, and further grinding will very likely be needed to regularise a slightly distorted blade.Quote:
Originally Posted by paco664
If I had to attempt a full or extra hollow ground blade, my first thought would be to say "What kind of fool was I to tell people I could do this?" and my second would be "Would air-hardening steel, like A-2, reduce the chances of disaster?" Good file steel is every bit as good as some of the best razors have been made of - and my only proviso there is that you should grind well below the level of the file teeth, especially near the edge. Sometimes the teeth are cut by a process that can make the beginnings of a crack.
The only factor which might make it a good idea for the amateur experimenter to buy steel, is the reduction of distortion in heat treatment. O1 (or O-1) tool steel is readily available and inexpensive, and hardens under the gentler cooling effect of quenching in oil.
If you are aiming for flat surfaces, you would find your job much easier with one or two grades of diamond hone, or with successive grades of aluminium oxide or silicon carbide paper, starting with the coarsest, glued to a flat piece of wood.
point well taken........ i have made knives out of files since the age of 12 when i would make them in the back of my fathers welding/machine shop ... where i also learned how to retemper when i made a booboo..... with the years i learned how not to overheat *(altho on the "2nd effort" i did overheat the spike which is why it disappeared between photos)......
using the stock removal method to shape a blade *(beit razor or knife) the more stock you remove the more careful you must be not to overheat....
get a container of some bowl shape... *(i use a 1/2 a milk jug) and fill it with water.... douse the blade when you feel heat... as you get closer to your shape objective remember there is less steel to heat therefore it will heat much much faster.... its not a race to the finish.......
i hope your attempt works for you as well as mine have worked for me.... *(i also have screwed up HUNDREDS more files than you have over the years....lol...)
i can still hear my 6'7" 320pound father in the back of the shop when he would catch me building a knife
ummm.... elliots hardware *(weak smile)....Quote:
WHERE DID YOU GET THAT DAMN FILE?
sorry dad.... *(not really)Quote:
BOY!! I AM GONNA *(insert threat of painful death here) IF YOU DON'T STOP BLANKING UP ALL MY FILES....
Fortunately files blunten in use, and eventually become useless. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
yeah... i tried that excuse....... 30 years later i think i still may have the belt marks on mah buttocks..... lol...Quote:
Originally Posted by Caledonian
I baught the 2 files I am using from a wood shop for $2.00 each. They were too dull to be any use to the guy so he was glad for the $4.00 and I got 2 Chicago steel files!
HTPD is serious indeed Mike!
good luck on the projects Shake
Thank you, I just got some more sanding disks so it's back to work.
photos of progress??Quote:
Originally Posted by Mastershake
Nothing worth photoing yet......looks like a shiny file now. lol