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She had a nice tutorial on her own website. Let's see if she posts it here....

Okey dokey, took a while but it's up now. Haven't had time to nice up the pdf, but at least the info is there. :-)
http://www.catbeadmischief.com/goodies.html

Make two, pinch one down and you'll be carving the finest detail in town! :-D :-D :-D

Cheers,
catbead

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Then heat the cutting end on a stove burner until it turns red

If you heat it that much you've gone too far. The blade will have lost it's heat treat and will be too soft to hold an edge. Watch the polished part where it's sharpened when it turns blue that's enough heat.

Shiloh

Thanks for the correction. :-) Would quenching harden it?

Cheers,
catbead

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Would quenching harden it?

It might,you can try it.

Metalurgy is a huge field and I'm far from being a expert but I was a machinist for years so I got to play with tempering a little.

I know you can take a file and heat it red,let it air cool and it will be soft enough to cut with another file. I never figured out how to put the hardness back just by heating and quenching.

Shiloh

Awesome tutorial! Thank you! What do you use to regrind the angle of the blade? Do you use a whetstone for that too? Just curious!

Thank you!
D5 Mama

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What do you use to regrind the angle of the blade? Do you use a whetstone for that too?

Yes, whetstone does it all. :-)

You're welcome!

Cheers,
catbead

Thank you! Will try that tonight I think!

D5 Mama

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I know you can take a file and heat it red,let it air cool and it will be soft enough to cut with another file. I never figured out how to put the hardness back just by heating and quenching.

Shiloh

I know that bending, tapping, stretching or otherwise working silver or gold will harden it. Maybe something similar like tapping on a hard surface would do the same with steel? Years ago a handyman tightened up a double hung window by making a special flat steel "spring". After shaping it just right he did something to it so that it would always spring back to that shape, and for the life of me I can't remember what he said he did, and it was something simple, maybe it was just a heat treat & quenching.

catbead

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Years ago a handyman tightened up a double hung window by making a special flat steel "spring". After shaping it just right he did something to it so that it would always spring back to that shape, and for the life of me I can't remember what he said he did, and it was something simple, maybe it was just a heat treat & quenching.

Spring steel can be made *springy* buy heating to a cherry red and quenching in oil. Maybe this is what he did.

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I know that bending, tapping, stretching or otherwise working silver or gold will harden it. Maybe something similar like tapping on a hard surface would do the same with steel?

Steel can be *work hardend* but that's not the same as temper or heat treat.
Shiloh