Not All Files Are Created Equal

[Dana Acker]

Forged a blade from a Madden brand file, supposedly US made, although it didn't say so--most non-European made files made outside the USA only display the country of origin, India, Pakistan, China, etc. etc.

Anyway, I finished hammering the blade and then trued it up and normalized it. After cooling I went to normalize it again and noticed a rather significant bow in the center of the blade. So, I heated it up and took the bow out. Satisfied it was just right, I normalized it once more. Upon cooling, I inspected it only to find a quite noticeable twist in the blade area. Once again, I heated the blade, took the twist out and re-normalized it. When I checked it after cooling the twist was back. #%&*!@&!

Have had this phenomena once before on a file of questionable origin. No matter what I did the blade would always warp or twist when cooling. I tried every trick I knew, but to no avail.

I'm not asking for suggestions here, because I do believe that there are just some files that were never meant to be knives. With old Black Diamond files, I never had a problem. They were made of W2 steel. Today's USA made files, I've been told are of 1095. I've worked extensively with both steels and have never had a problem that I couldn't fix, as long as I was doing everything right.

I don't know what kind of steel goes into Western European files, as I don't know all their steel designations--perhaps Achim, Tim, and Roger can help out with that.

Anyone else have similar problems with particular files?

[Sweany]

Dana, it was probably made out of an old leaf spring to start with

[Roger Gregory]

That one sounds like a real pig Dana

I'm not sure what steel most European files are made from. Themanufacturers don't seem to understand the needs of knifemakers Certainly the good ones are still hard enough to be very brittle, I've seen some with broken tips. Maybe Achim or Tim will have an idea.

There's a lot of what you would call flea-market junk here now It's all made in China and shipped over here to be sold dirt cheap. The files are just case-hardened from what I can tell. The chisels are high-carbon steel but are often not ground sharp

Roger