blade thickness???

[kansas stik man]

I am making a knife out of an old file and i have the metal cut to size but the file is about 3/16 inch thick which would make for a pretty beefy blade. i wanna make it thinner, how do i go about doing that? besides filing my guts out.

[Lin Rhea]

No way out of it, unless you have a grinder.

I'm assuming the blade/file is annealed?

[Ragnarok Forge]

Sounds like your ready for the armstrong method.  Annealed?  Very important that part.

[kansas stik man]

i did anneal it and i thinks its softer now but not sure how soft? any way to tell if its as soft as i need it?

[Lin Rhea]

If you can file it easily, it is soft enough.

[kansas stik man]

would a belt sander take very much material off ?

[Broke another one]

I would say a angle grinder would be alot faster but if you have say 36 grit sandpaper you could do it that way, not sure how long it would take tho.

[Scott Roush]

I would stick to draw filing.  You can go to places that you can't return from real fast with a grinder or belt sander if you don't know what you're doing.  However... for profiling shape, putting your metal in a vice and hogging with an angle grinder is a good way to go.  But I wouldn't attempt your bevels that way.  If you have a good mill file and a wire brush to clean it with.. you will be amazed at how much you can do. Good control too.

Have you looked into the proper methods for draw filing?

[kansas stik man]

scott im new to knife making this is my first one and i dont know what draw filing is.  i dont wanna do the tapers with a grinder just that the metal is 3/16 inch thick now and i would like it to be 1/8 or a little thiner but dont really know a good way to get it there i know next time to start with a thinner file.

[Leon.R]

Excuse my ignorance but maybee its just the terminology...but how does a drawfile differ from a normal file or is it just the way you use it?
Leon

[Scott Roush]

draw filing is a technique where you hold both ends of, say, a big mill file and draw it across the blade. A very aggressive way to remove stock with a lot of control. Google 'draw filing'.  There is a good tutorial on the Blade forums I think.  There are a lot of people that still forge their blades mostly to completion and then finish with draw filing.  I still use it for shaping swedges and smoothing out mistakes with the grinder....

[Lin Rhea]

I clamp the blade where the tip is towards me. I hold the tang of the file in my left hand and the opposite end of the file in my right and draw the file towards me with the file sort of perpendicular to the blade. The file will tell you just how to hold it after a few strokes.

When you clamp your blade tip toward you, take precautions not to impale yourself. I place a
1 X 2  under the blade with just the tip protruding out over the end of the board.