will an old nichelson rasp work.  i bought it at lowes a long time ago for bow making.  it didn;t stay sharp long, so i was wondering.  its half round on one side and less coarse flat on the other side.  might be lots of shaping and grinding.  I am looking to make a simple 3-5 knife as a starter in knives.

Sulpher,
         Are you going to forge the blade? If so, I think you can use the file. If not, the grinding to shape will probably lose all of the teeth on one side. So, it really depends. If I was going to try to "stock remove", I would start with a flat file/rasp, because I would try to use the file teeth as part of the look. Lin

nah, was not considering anything that fancy yet.  just flatening both side after annealing.