Are there any build along tutorials showing how to make a knife out of an old file?

belt sander and some patience worked for me!!!

Check the "Where do I start" thread on here. I posted some links that should answer all your questions.

With a file you have to have some way to "anneal' it. Thats making the hard steel soft enough you can drill, sand etc. That means heating it up till it reaches critical temp (a magnet will no longer stick to it) then letting it slowly cool  back to temp. I made a small brick forge like in the $50 dollar knife book but some folks do it in an charcoal fire burying the blade in the coals. You then cut, file, sand everything thats not a knife and then heat it back to critical temp but now immediately dip  it in oil (ATF, olive oil, used motor oil) and it will resort back to as hard as it was before as a file. At this point it's too hard to sharpen and is brittle so you have to temper it. That means putting in an oven (old toaster oven) and heat it to about 350 for a couple hours and slowly let it cool. Check with a file to see if bites into it. If it does fine if not put back in the oven at say 400 for a hour and try again. Once you  get it to a point you can file it you'll be able to sharpen it. Now finish it and put scales (handle materials) on it and if your like most folks start designing your next knife. Good luck and post pics here.

Check out this set of four videos on you tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ysKd1cswlo
Mike

wish i would have known about annealing, i went through about a dozen sander belts lol

Hi,
LC gives a great run-down on the process. I am a knife-maker and would add just a bit more.
I made my first knife out of a file...I built a fire in the back yard and once I got a good bed of coals, just put the file in it and went to bed. The next morning my file was laying in the ashes and was annealed. Then I cut & shaped the knife to my specs.
Then reheated the file/knife to about 1500*f and held it for 5 min. Then quench in light oil.(move very quickly, or the steel will not harden like it should)
Make sure you cover the knife in the oil completely or you will catch the oil surface on fire. And be sure to move the knife back & forth in the oil while quenching. Not side to side of this can bend the blade.
Tempering a file steel should be done in three cycles at 350 degrees. Hold it at temp for 1hr then let it cool slowly in still air. Then heat it again. That is one cycle. When testing the cutting edge hardness, try cutting the edge with a used file, you want it to just grab.
Remember that file steel is very high in carbon and will rust very easy. The finer your finish the slower rust will attack.
But files do make great cutting knives..
Good luck!

Thanks a lot for the advice.  Next bbq the file is going in the grill!