Old file for knife blade?

[littlejohn1959]

i made some chipcarving knifes out of ice auger blades .
the steel is great . razor sharpe .
there is a fair bit of grinding to the ice auger baldes also , but its well worth the effort .
maybe this might be an idea for some ice fisherman /women , with old ice auger blades .
cheers .

[Capt. Bandaid]

Several years ago (maybe 6-7?) WCI had an article on making chisels and gouges by hand. It described how to use a propane torch to make a one-brick forge (this idea seems to have been borrowed from a blacksmithing site). This article was the inspiration I needed to go into blacksmithing big time. But you don't need a lot of heavy tools to forge small knives. You can buy three feet of 1/4" W1 tool steel at most industrial supply stores for under $7. This is water quenching tool steel that makes a fine blade. Maybe Bob can reference the exact year and month of this article. I did it like the article said and made a set of small tools, including many carving knives. If there are technical questions on how to do it, I would be happy to answer them.

[Shimmy]

I always thought a file is much too brittle to be used to make a knife.If you drop a file on a hard surface it can shatter.Unless you plan on changing the temper.Thats only my opinon.

[Thomp]

A file is brittle but so is a straight razor knife, almost always nether one will survive a fall onto a concrete floor,

i had 2 mini rambelson v palm tools break from falling on a hardwood floor, guess thats what we get when we are to old to hang on to our tools properly....

to carve over a rubber mat i think is standard advise!