Sharpness

You know, I've honestly handled very few knives in my short life. So things like how thick the blade should be is something I have to knid of feel my way forward with.

Here's a question y'all can help with: How sharp is your knife before you heat treat? I think I've been leaving mine too thick at the edge. But I'm going to experiment. I have a couple of knives I've sharpened until they can cut through newspaper (edgewise) without too much trouble. They haven't been heat treated yet. I've used the heated pipe method on a couple of knives and was pleased with the outcome. I think that it will allow me to harden with a sharp edge without fear of burning the thin metal. Scale hasn't really been a big problem. I got the steel as smooth as I could with sandpaper and stones before I heated it for heat treat, and when I quenched what scale formed popped off with no trouble, leaveing the steel basically as smooth as before.

Thanks.

I remember going through that Raven. I used to always end up with a knife with a real thick edge. I was afraid to get it too thin so it would wind up too thick at the edge.

There's several ways to look at edge thickness before heat treat. My first recommendation is to not sharpen the blade before heat treating it. I always leave a blunt, unsharpened edge of the same thickness from choil to tip before heat treating. At least 1/32" thick is my rule of thumb. On larger blades I go for 1/16" thickness. And by blunt I meant flat 90 degrees. I always grind the flat on after I finish flat grinding the blade so it's actually part of profiling. Also, always grind in line with the edge. In other words, don't grind at a 90 degree angle to the edge or it will leave gouges in the edge that can and do cause cracks in the edge when you quench it. Grind from the choil to the tip or from the tip to the choil.

The problem with heat treating after sharpening is that no matter how careful you are you will lose some carbon in that thin edge cross section during heat treat. And that means that you'll have to grind or file or sand away a good part of the edge in order to get to the good, hard steel resulting from the quench. So always leave a thick edge for the quench and when you sharpen the blade you will come out about right. Make sense? I hope this helps and hasn't confused you. It's hard to put it into words but I could show you with no problem. Good luck and have fun.