How hard can you get steel? Looking to make a file guard

L

Leon Husock

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Jul 17, 2019
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I find myself needing a file guard lately, but they're all a bit expensive for me ($100-150), likely because carbide is a pricey material. I know we generally test whether a blade is hardened by seeing if a file skates; is there a particular alloy steel that I could heat treat for absolute maximum hardness and use as the face of a homemade file guard? Thanks for any advice you can give!

P.S. I'm new to the forum, so apologies if there was a better place/way to ask this, or if the answer is easily found somewhere and I just missed it. Thanks again, guys.
 
Buy one with carbide inserts and don't look back. It will become one of the best 'bang for the buck' tools in your knife shop.
 
I'm definitely planning to in the future, but for now I have a lot of "lets me do a thing I otherwise couldn't do" tools to buy, whereas to me a file guide feels like a "makes stuff I can already do easier and better" kind of tool.
 
M.McAlevy said:
Buy one with carbide inserts and don't look back. It will become one of the best 'bang for the buck' tools in your knife shop.
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I have one I that I made but have been considering getting a good carbide one. How well do they hold up on the belt grinder? I work with AEB-L and do my grinding post heat treat and I'd hat to make a mess of the carbide inserts with a ceramic belt.
 
I doubt that a ceramic belt would touch carbide inserts. Bruce Bump, please chime in.
Tim
 
You can make a serviceable guide out of 2 pieces of angle iron with bolts welded in and holes on the other side.
It will wear easily, but you can make another in about 15 minutes.
 
For a cheap (relative) carbide file guide, you can purchase some carbide bars from ebay and epoxy them to a steel base
 
Leon Husock said:
I find myself needing a file guard lately, but they're all a bit expensive for me ($100-150), likely because carbide is a pricey material. I know we generally test whether a blade is hardened by seeing if a file skates; is there a particular alloy steel that I could heat treat for absolute maximum hardness and use as the face of a homemade file guard? Thanks for any advice you can give!

P.S. I'm new to the forum, so apologies if there was a better place/way to ask this, or if the answer is easily found somewhere and I just missed it. Thanks again, guys.
Click to expand...
I have two , one with HSS/67hrc/ steel and two with ceramic tile.......I like more this one with ceramic tile ...............one I use with angle grinder to speed up things and other one for fine tuning .........
PS . I don t use them on grinder ,I use them only for work on hidden tang knives...
Oe6H2JY.jpg
 
An option I have used is removing the teeth from the side of the file that is going up against the guide, and that protects the guide from wear.
 
If you happen to buy one, I'd say get one depending on how you plan on using it. If you want to use it mostly at the grinder I would say get one with carbide, but if you plan on using a file I'd say get hardened steel one, because the carbide will kill the teeth on your files much faster, and you can't use diamond needle-files since they bite into the carbide and will eventually create grooves where the file rest on the faces.

But yea, if you're only looking to make your own and are also going to heat treat it yourself then you can get something like O1 (as mentioned) in about 1/4"+ thickness by 1" wide, 3/8" thick would be even better, then drill holes through one of the halves for bolts and for lineup pins if you plan on using them and use that half as a template to drill the holes through the second half. Next, harden and also temper them at around 300-350F for a couple hours to stabilize the martensite, then bolt them together (and also pin if using those as well) so you can grind/sand the faces so they're flat and also square in relation to their sides, and finally finish them up using on a plate surface (i.e granite or glass) and lap them with some sand paper, probably at least up to 400 for a smoother/flatter finish. You can grind them flat before hardening, but I'd still finish them up afterwards in case the steel moves a bit during the quench.

There are other ways of going about it, but maybe these suggestions will help ya get started.

~Paul
My Youtube Channel
... (Just some older videos of some knives I've made in the past)
 
Guys , I can cut ANY steel with cutting disk on angle grinder . I CAN T even scratch ceramic with same disk...................
 
I believe the OP is specifically asking about a file guard. If we're talking about belt or angle grinders it'll be a different conversation.
 
OP asked how hard could steel be hardened to - 1080/84 or 1095 can easy hit 65 Rc or better from Quench a 300F temper.
 
I have a Bruce Bump Carbide file guide and like it a lot.
I put it on a tapered tang once to grind in my plunges and one of the carbide surfaces fell out.
No worries, it was my fault for doing something I don't think it was designed to do.

I do have one I made from O1 many years ago that is getting all my plunge grind work now.
I've probably used it on close to 100 knives in the last year or so.
While some minor wear is apparent it's still getting the job done just fine.

O1 quenched and tempered at the lowest setting my oven would do is working/holding up just fine.
 
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