dialee wrote:blacknblue:
The knife looks beautiful yet it looks mean enough to do the job should the need arise. The craftsmanship comes through.
Could you explain a few of the terms? What kind of "old file"? "spring steel?" "guard?" "tang?"
Thank you.
I started with a rusty old bastard file that I had worn out from using it for several years. There is excellent steel in files, but they are tempered to be so hard that they are ordinarily almost as brittle as glass. In fact, if you drop the average shop file on a concrete floor it will often shatter.
To overcome this it is merely necessary to apply heat in controlled doses to soften the metal. You need to have enough experience to know how to control the heat, as well as understand the metal well enough to realize the appropriate temperature range to use. But if it is done properly you can start with a brittle file and end up with a piece of excellent high carbon steel that is hard enough to take and hold a better than razor edge, yet still bend without breaking.
The guard is the cross piece that covers the front end of the handle, right behind the blade. I cut and shaped it from a piece of scrap metal that I had laying around the shop. I really don't recall exactly what the source was. Drill a series of small holes to mark the slot, cut the slot with a chisel, even the slot with a tiny jeweler's file or something similar (whatever is available) and then slip the guard up from the butt of the file until it fits snugly against the base of the blade.
That tang refers to the portion of the file that is not shaped as part of the blade. For this particular knife, I left the rear 40% of the file flat and merely smoothed down the original grooves. That is the portion that slides into the wooden handle.
"When the legends die, the dreams end. When the dreams end, there is no more greatness."
--Tecumseh
"It is better to be a live jackal than a dead lion."
--King Solomon the Wise
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Unless the few are armed.
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