little file knife

N

Nathan Gould

Joined
Jul 21, 2008
Messages
361
heres a couple of pics of a little file knife i made a few days ago, its a bit rough around the edges but im pleased with the overall shape of it and very pleased with the heat treatment, its seriously sharp!

I'd be very interested in some comments/criticisms/advice, ive got about 5 more files annealed and waiting in the shed and i'm looking to knock out a few more over the next couple of weeks.

cheers

Nathan

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Nice work, very clean lines.
 
Nice work Nathan, great profile for a knife that size. I've wanted to make myself one for awhile. About the only two things I could suggest would be a nick at the choil to end your grind; when sharpening it might help avoid scratching the shoulder at the top of the handle. Other than that maybe a lanyard hole, always nice to have a lanyard on a small knife.
You've motivated me, how did you anneal the file?
--J
 
Thanks for the replies, I think you're right there J, a notch at the start of the edge would be useful, and a lanyard hole would mean that you could attach a lanyard and have a bigger blade to handle ratio because the foruth finger could be on the lanyward. I'll try that next time!

I annealed it in my homemade forge, its basically a saucepan with a pipe in it! it was really cheap and easy to make, i think it cost about £20. i'll try and post some pics in a minute
 
here it is, bottom and sides are lined with fireplace cement from the local hardware shop, then theres a drilled steel pipe set into it which feeds air into the centre of the fire, it works well though it is a little limited on length, i need to flip the files over if i want to anneal them along the whole length, but blades tend to fit in fine, i push a hairdryer up to the end of the pipe to force air into the fire, ive melted the tips off of more than one blade by not paying attention!

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hi Paul,

No its not my first knife but its one of my first blades, and the one of the first batch i ever made that wasnt from flat stock. Its a pretty steep learning curve!
 
That is a nice little file knife! I'm not usually much of a fan although I did make a few myself. I like how you kept the teeth for the grip, that's a detail that I haven't seen yet.
 
thanks Justin, i was really quite happy with the way the texture on the handle turned out, i suppose the forge probably burnt off some of the sharp edges on the teeeth because its got more of a shallow knurl feel than a bitey file feel to it, really nice to hold, just wish i hadnt filed that groove in by the ricasso :(
 
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