Need help with surrations

[Gahagan]

I have a customer that is wanting me to put about 2" of serration on a knife. I was wondering how I would do this? Do I go ahead and grind the serrations prior to HT. Do I do it after? Please help.

 

[SBuzek]

Grind the bevels then file in the serrations, then H/T,practice on a piece of scrap first cause it's easy to mess up trying to keep the blade edge even.
Stan

 

[Gahagan]

Thanks. Do I file them to cutting edge or leave them thicker like I would the knife edge?

 

[EdCaffreyMS]

Serrations are one of the trickiest things to install on a blade (at least correctly).....you really need to experiments with the size and spacing of the "teeth" to figure out what works and what doesn't. Just filing any old serration pattern in will not do. In my experience, 2 small, one large, 2 small, etc. seems to work very well. If you're customer doesn't have much experience with serrations on a blade, and is wanting it because it's "cool", it might be a good thing to educate him/her on the fact that serrations actually have a fairly limited usage.....serrations work well for cutting very fibrous materials like seat belts, hemp rope, etc. but are somewhat lacking for most other cutting chores.

As far as installing them, there in lies another "trick". You can do a base line install of the serrations prior to heat treat, but then you are going to have to go back and complete the cutting/finishing after heat treat. It's a tough job, and requires GOOD diamond files to do correctly. In the end it's going to add a lot of time and effort to building a blade...often for me it requires an an additional 2-3 hour of fairly intense work. When you add up the limited usage of the feature, the extra time, labor, and special tools needed to do it correctly, I will generally try to talk customers out of it, or if they insist on it, the price goes up.

 

[Gahagan]

Thanks. I know he intends on heavy use of the knife but I am not sure why he is intent on the serrations.