Decorative filing before or after heat treat?

Z

Zambash

Joined
Jul 8, 2017
Messages
12
Hey guys, planning my next knife project right now and I'm planning to do some decorative file work on the spine of the blade. Will be a hunting knife with a spine thickness of approximately 1/4 inch. Working with 1095 and 15n20 damascus. The plan is to do a rough grind of the bevels prior to heat treating, while leaving a bit of thickness at the edge because I know 1095 is a bit finnicky in the quench. Planning to do a canola oil quench because I don't have access to anything like Parks 50 and I don't really want to deal with the relatively higher risk of warping/cracks that comes with a water/brine quench. Hoping to reach a post-temper hardness of 57-58 rockwell.

My question is in the title. I don't have diamond files and I imagine my steel files are in the standard file range around 62-63 rockwell. I'm wondering if doing the file work prior to heat treat would be adding too many stress points and increase the risk of my knife cracking/noodling in the quench. By the same token, using files only 5-6 rockwell harder than the work piece after quench seems like it would take ages.

Does anyone have experience with this and could suggest the best order of operations for decorative file work on 1095?

EDIT: Seen some suggestions elsewhere about softening the spine after heat treat by suspending the knife in a tub of water so that only the spine is sticking out and heating it up nice and hot with a torch, does that sound like a good option?
 
Last edited:
I work mainly with 154CM, 440C, 5160. I have never had a problem with cracking due to file work.
I can't imagine doing file work after heat treat unless I was using carbide burrs in a Dremmel tool. I'm sure someone doeos this, I just can't imagine why!
If you are worried about stress risers caused by file work:
1 confine the file work to the tang (full tang only),
2 use file work with round corners not sharp v shaped cuts, or square corners.
3 edge quench the blade
4 put the file work on a wrapped tang
If in doubt, try it on a piece of scrap and see what happens.
Jim A.
 
I guess I should have mentioned it will be a hidden tang knife, so the file work will be along the actual spine of the blade. Since posting I had been looking into some of the edge quench methods you mention, as well as the alternative of softening the spine after a full quench, seems like one of those two are probably the best option. I haven't settled on exactly what sort of file pattern I want to do yet so I'm not sure if I would be able to avoid any sharp corners.
 
Can't file a hardened blade, at least not easily.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top