Just took a file out of the wood stove

D

Dan Youngs

Active Member
Hi I am new, have not made my first knife yet. I heat my shop with a wood stove and have no forge or HT oven. I read the about annealing a file in a forge or charcoal fire in the forum. So while a had a nice wood fire going last week end I set a 12" file in the coals and continued to add wood as I cleaned my shop and was thinking about how to start a knife project. I let the fire go out and 3 days later dug around the ashes and found the file. I can know cut it with a file. It has a slight bend to it. I tried the hammer it straight on a flat block of steel. It does not straighten easily.

Do I need it hot again to straighten? It only has about a 1/16 of and inch bend. In other words when it is flat on the table there is a about a 1/16 gap under it with the curve up.

I plan to make a about a 6" knife so maybe after I cut it, it will be straight enough?

I have a 2x42 belt grinder and a 4" angle grinder.... do you think it is ready to try shaping?

I look forward to you comments and suggestions.

Dan
 
If you can cut it it's ready to be shaped that's what I made my first knife out of. If your file is cutting through it you should be good to go!
 
Ok thanks.... I'll get to it....

Any advice on using the wood stove fire for HT after it is shaped? Do you think I can get to non magnetic without a fan? What color should I be looking for? red , orange , straw yellow.... stuff I remember from 9th grade shop class I guess.... Back when schools had real shop class...
 
I used to use bbq charcoal with a small fan to heat treat. It gets it to non magnetic and I've had success doing that way but the Atmosphere is very inconsistent I ended up perforating (small holes sides and top, no holes in the bottom or near the spine area) a piece of pipe and welded an end cap on it. Run some wire through 4 of the holes in the tang area to keep the blade centered in the pipe) I then buried the pipe at an angle (open end up) in charcoal and slid the knife, blade first and spine down into the chamber. Get it preheated thoroughly and then use the fan to bump it up the temp for the last 4-5- min. Avoid blowing air into the chamber, just fan the coal base. I've done 4-5 file knifes this way. They hardened, had to deal with some pitting (more grinding/ sanding) but they're holding an edge.
 
Here we go again with the non-magnetic temp for quench heat. This fallacy just won't die. You have to go a shade or so of red above non-magnetic to get a good solution in the steel. Quench in warmed canola oil. Brine if you're brave. 1 or 2 gallons depending on blade size.
 
Using the wood the way you described you probably got it way to hot and caused grain growth. To normalize or anneal you should only bring it up to non magnetic then cool as for normalizing or annealing. Now you probably need to normalize or anneal two or three times without getting it to hot. By letting it cool in the ashes it would have been annealed.

Frances Whitaker was a famous blacksmith and teacher. When a student would bring a forging and ask, "Is this straight enough." Frances would respond, "Is it straight?"
 
Since the file was just in a wood stove without a fan blowing to get fire really hot, I'd question if non-magnetic was actually reached. Even with a file cutting the metal, and if you can't bend it fairly easy, I'd think it wasn't fully annealed. Clamp a very short end in vise, and bend it - if it bends ok, then you can straighten old file, but if it breaks, then it wasn't annealed.

Ken
 
Thanx to Smithy he showed me a trick today and straightened the file with his vise and three bolts to pinch just the right spot on the file.
 
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