Best UK file brands

[Jackmc00]

Hello all, being new to knife making and choosing the different steels is quite difficult and expensive. I've saw endless videos on YouTube about people making knives out of files and I thought I'd give it a go. The only thing is which files to use.
The files in this day and age arent great steel for knives and luckily being from the UK theres been a huge steel industry for hundreds of years. My question is do you know any old file brands I could use to make a knife?
Cheers
Jack

 

[timgunn1962]

Stubs were always very good IIRC, and British, but I've not seen any for years.

When at car boot sales, the brands I tend to look for are mostly European: Grobet and Vallorbe tend to be top-tier. Oberg and Sandvik Oberg are usually pretty good and can often be found NOS. I am usually looking for files to use as files though.
If you are making a knife, second-hand is unlikely to be a problem, even if the teeth are dull.

Nowadays, unless I'm after something pretty specialised for actually filing with, I tend to go for the Cromwell/Zoro files since they are reasonably cheap and work reasonably well. This might be worthwhile avenue for investigation.

Making a file knife usually means you don't need to Austenitize and can just temper in a domestic oven. It can seem like a big advantage for a beginner, but the downside is that you are working with file-hard steel and therefore can't use files to get the blade shaped. If you are using a cheap single-speed grinder, you need to be very careful you don't overheat the cutting edge.

 

[Jackmc00]

Stubs were always very good IIRC, and British, but I've not seen any for years.

When at car boot sales, the brands I tend to look for are mostly European: Grobet and Vallorbe tend to be top-tier. Oberg and Sandvik Oberg are usually pretty good and can often be found NOS. I am usually looking for files to use as files though.
If you are making a knife, second-hand is unlikely to be a problem, even if the teeth are dull.

Nowadays, unless I'm after something pretty specialised for actually filing with, I tend to go for the Cromwell/Zoro files since they are reasonably cheap and work reasonably well. This might be worthwhile avenue for investigation.

Making a file knife usually means you don't need to Austenitize and can just temper in a domestic oven. It can seem like a big advantage for a beginner, but the downside is that you are working with file-hard steel and therefore can't use files to get the blade shaped. If you are using a cheap single-speed grinder, you need to be very careful you don't overheat the cutting edge.

I have a few oberg and stubs files. Do you have any idea what type of steel they are? And the others you mentioned?
I'm currently using a 1x30 belt sander which gets the job done. Once annealed the files should be quite easy to work with I hope.
Atb

 

[timgunn1962]

The main reason for making file knives is usually to eliminate the need for the Austenitizing and quench. Files are harder than you need a knife to be, so the only HT is temperingto a lower hardness. You need to deal with hard steel, which is the downside.

If you are going to be annealing, you'll need to re-Austenitize and are probably better off starting with O1 ground flat stock or similar. It tends to need a longer soak at Austenitizing temperature, but is an Oil-hardening steel and much more likely to survive the quench than a water- hardening steel of guessed-at composition.

 

[Jackmc00]

Stubs were always very good IIRC, and British, but I've not seen any for years.

When at car boot sales, the brands I tend to look for are mostly European: Grobet and Vallorbe tend to be top-tier. Oberg and Sandvik Oberg are usually pretty good and can often be found NOS. I am usually looking for files to use as files though.
If you are making a knife, second-hand is unlikely to be a problem, even if the teeth are dull.

Nowadays, unless I'm after something pretty specialised for actually filing with, I tend to go for the Cromwell/Zoro files since they are reasonably cheap and work reasonably well. This might be worthwhile avenue for investigation.

Making a file knife usually means you don't need to Austenitize and can just temper in a domestic oven. It can seem like a big advantage for a beginner, but the downside is that you are working with file-hard steel and therefore can't use files to get the blade shaped. If you are using a cheap single-speed grinder, you need to be very careful you don't overheat the cutting edge.

I have a few oberg and stubs files. Do you have any idea what type of steel they are? And the others you mentioned?
I'm currently using a 1x30 belt sander which gets the job done. Once annealed the files should be quite easy to work with I hope.c

The main reason for making file knives is usually to eliminate the need for the Austenitizing and quench. Files are harder than you need a knife to be, so the only HT is temperingto a lower hardness. You need to deal with hard steel, which is the downside.

If you are going to be annealing, you'll need to re-Austenitize and are probably better off starting with O1 ground flat stock or similar. It tends to need a longer soak at Austenitizing temperature, but is an Oil-hardening steel and much more likely to survive the quench than a water- hardening steel of guessed-at composition.

Cheers for the help mate

The main reason for making file knives is usually to eliminate the need for the Austenitizing and quench. Files are harder than you need a knife to be, so the only HT is temperingto a lower hardness. You need to deal with hard steel, which is the downside.

If you are going to be annealing, you'll need to re-Austenitize and are probably better off starting with O1 ground flat stock or similar. It tends to need a longer soak at Austenitizing temperature, but is an Oil-hardening steel and much more likely to survive the quench than a water- hardening steel of guessed-at composition.

 

[C_Claycomb]

If you are not aware of it, you might benefit from joining Edgematters.uk, a uk based knife forum. While much smaller than Blade Forums, and arguably less good for technical info (fewer members, less history), it can be good for local knowledge on tools and materials. Also, you might meet some makers who are local enough for a visit.

As for the file question, I am not sure it matters much at this stage. What I mean is that when you are on your first knife there are so many things yet to be discovered, so many things that can go wrong, that knowing the exact steel in an old file isn’t going to be very significant to the outcome.

Personally I would not go to all the trouble of trying to use an old file If you are going to try to anneal then requench and temper. You are introducing processes and opportunities for problems when there are simpler, more reliable and pretty inexpensive alternatives. 80CrV2 is meant to be a good starting place, easier than the O1 I began with, and 700x40x3mm cost less than £7. Just let Google do the searching for groundflatstock.

Time to recommend a new beginner steel

Thirty years ago I was getting a lot of phone calls concerning problems smiths were having making damascus. I also needed help when I started making the stuff. At the time, guys were using all kinds of steels to make pattern welded damascus. 1095, W2, W1, O1, O2, 5160, 203E, nickel, 52100, and...

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atb
Chris