German hunting trousse, part V

I've concluded that this unidentified steel is much harder than I'd expected.  I annealed the tang several more times, switched between different sizes of drill bits, broke four or five, and endured much screeching noises before managing to create all the small pilot holes.

In the end, I locked the blade in a vise and gradually widened the holes with a 1/8-inch round file held in a pair of pliers.  When the holes were large enough that the file slid through easily, I ran the 1/8-inch drill bit through each one from both sides, then tried to make it a shade larger with a 9/64-inch bit.  This worked for three of them, but not the remaining two.  I settled for making the holes large enough that the nickel silver pin stock would slide through without much difficulty, which is all that's really needed.

I concluded the week's work by smoothing the reshaped tang edges with a rasp, then polishing them with sandpaper up to 1500 grit and finally the Dremel's wire wheel.  The sandpaper failed to take all the rasp's scratch marks out, but they're only visible on close inspection and I'm not too ashamed.

Image dumping ground

I've decided to start a page which will consist of just images that I need URLs for.  Running updates, no tags, description or careful formatting.

German hunting trousse, part IV

I gave up on using the cutoff wheel and instead finished reshaping the tang with what remained of the grinder's flap disk.  So far, so good.

I finished planning the hilt with a tracing of the new tang shape.  As you can see here, the new shape leaves the original pin holes badly off-center, so a new set was required.  Luckily, I've just finished setting up a mini drill press in the basement which ought to work for this purpose...

...  but didn't, or at least not well enough.  To be frank, after how fast the flap disk reduced the edges, I expected the drill to punch through with ease like I've often done with a drill press on mild steel.  The 3/16-inch bit made the nagel hole with difficulty, but the 1/8-inch bit refused to go more than partway through.  After that, it spun and heated the tang but refused to go any deeper.  Even annealing the tang didn't help.  Now the drill bit's tip is blue and looks blunted.  I may not be able to finish this step until I pick up a replacement.