1095 fell in water bucket. Can it be saved?

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Folsoml

Joined
Jul 15, 2016
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I was working with a piece of 1095 steel. I was moving it from the forge to the anvil while it was yellow hot and accidentally dropped it into a bucket of water. Is it ruined? If not, what do I need to do to it before I try to work it again?
 
Look closely for cracks. If you don't see any anneal it and carry on but keep your eye out for cracks.
 
I did that to a piece of 1095 a while back. It came out of the water bucket and looked like a boomerang. It looked okay and I finished my forging and all my normal thermal cycles/heat treating.

When I started finishing out the blade, I found a couple cracks in it. I have very good heat control and grinding skills and feel that I did everything right. I think it had to have been the falling into the water WAY too hot that caused the cracking in the heat treating....but who knows?

Personally, If that happened to me again...I'd probably scrap that piece of steel, just because of me being paranoid. That's not saying that WILL happen to you too. I just don't trust it after that.
 
I quenched a forged 1095 blade in water once, on purpose, before I got my P50 oil. It *looked* ok and I didn't feel any *tinks* when I quenched, and as I was grinding I watched the blade to see cracks appear, never saw any until the blade fell apart in 3 pieces.

For me personally I would scrap it. 1095 is cheap. My time isn't.
 
It is only$5 worth of steel. Don't wast $50in belts and labor only to end up p!$$ed off when you find it isn't any good

Toss it and grab a new bar of steel.

If it makes you feel better, almost everyone who forges does this at least once.
 
Thanks for the advice! I'm such a beginning knife maker that my time is basically worth nothing. I'll probably still try to see what I can do with this, because I already had a little effort invested in it.
 
Folsoml said:
Thanks for the advice! I'm such a beginning knife maker that my time is basically worth nothing. I'll probably still try to see what I can do with this, because I already had a little effort invested in it.
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This is an incorrect statement, The time you spend is an investment in learning and that is worth a great deal. Learning from an accident and mistakes teaches us a lot. I would toss the bar too but proceed and learn. As a beginner you would be better to start with 1080 or 1084. Good luck.
 
heat it back to cherry red let it cool and put it in the vice and give it a few whacks. probably break really easily and u can feel better about chunking it.
 
If not, what do I need to do to it before I try to work it again?
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No matter f its ruined or not, move your water bucket to another place helps avoiding this in future.
Speaking from experience.....: :)
 
R APPLEBY said:
As a beginner you would be better to start with 1080 or 1084. Good luck.
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That was my last little bit of 1095. All I have now is 1084.

What I did with the piece in question is run it through the normalization process a few times. It seems OK so far.
 
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I am going to be Uncle Stacy for a minute.

You are a brand new maker who is learning. You asked about a problem and those with many years of experience answered you. You said, "thanks, but I will ignore your advice." That is your call, but don't expect a lot of future help with that attitude. You can learn by making your own mistakes, or learn from those previoiusly made by others ... and avoid future mistakes. The learning curve is faster with the advice and experience of others.
 
I was afraid when I made that post that it would be interpreted like that. It is not how I meant it. I appreciate all assistance. I shall endeavor to show more humility in the future. Please do not give up on me.
 
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Many of us wasted time on blades that would have been better off if tossed out. It's all about the learning especially in the beginning. There is so much to take in at this time in your road to becoming a knife maker that to spend extra time on trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear is pointless. I dig out knives I made 15 years ago just to have a good laugh. Grind and learn, grind and learn.

Fred
 
Folsoml said:
What I did with the piece in question is run it through the normalization process a few times. It seems OK so far.
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Lots of times the cracks dont show up until youre in the final stages of polishing. Go bend it in the vice. It will most likely break with ease. Chunk it- carry on.
 
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Folsoml said:
I was afraid when I made that post that it would be interpreted like that. It is not how I meant it. I appreciate all assistance. I shall endeavor to show more humility in the future. Please do not give up on me.
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No problem, I was giving you the "Dutch Uncle" advise on being a member of a community. You are at a point where you know a little, but still don't know what you don't know. That is where the advice of those who have "been there and done that" is invaluable. Other things you can do to help yourself and help us help you is to fill out your profile. If I or someone knew you were in the same area, you might get an offer to bring the blade over and let someone with more experience take a second look. You said it looks good to you, but you may not know how and where to look. Your profile info helps a lot in making good answers. I often say, "While the question may be the same, the advice to a 17 year old with no power tools and no shop experience is vastly different than advice to a 60 year old retired machinist".




TIP:
When checking a blade for suspected flaws/cracks/bad welds, grind it clean to 200 grit or higher ( doesn't have to be fully shaped, just clean and smooth. I go to 400 grit.). You may not be able to see any tiny cracks or flaws in welds because the grinding burnishes the metal over them so they don't show. To find those invisible flaws and cracks - etch in 3:1 FC for 5-10 minutes. Rinse and wipe dry, then hang on a wire in the open air for 24-48 hours. It is likely any flaws or invisible cracks will show as spots/lines of corrosion or rust. This is a really good way to find bad spots in a billet of damascus before you spend a lot of time grinding a blade only to discover a bad weld in the final stages.
This test also demonstrates why it is very important to fully neutralize a blade after etch, boil it for 10-30 minutes, dry while hot, and oil after about 30 minutes to assure no trapped water or acid in in invisible pockets or folds. Some folks bake the blade at 300F for 30 minutes after the boiling to assure no water is left trapped. They oil while hot to make the oil get sucked in any voids and fill them completely as the blade cools.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
You are at a point where you know a little, but still don't know what you don't know.
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This is a very good point, and thank you. I've filled in my profile. If you will allow me one final moment to explain my thought process on why I proceeded, and then I'll say no more on the topic:

I'm 49 years old and just started making knives. Everything I know for the most part I've learned from watching youtube videos and "Forged in Fire." I only recently (see this thread) learned such terms as "normalizing" and "annealing." I knew enough to know it was bad that this piece fell in the water, so I came here to ask if it could be saved. The consensus of responses from professional knife makers was that it could be saved, but the risk of failure was not worth the expenditure of their time. Steel is cheap, time is money, it's not worth the risk. None of those things applied to me. I do not buy steel in a volume that would make what I would be losing "a $5 piece of 1095." I have no intention of trying to sell this knife or any other knives anytime in the foreseeable future, so, for me, time is not money.

Having all this in mind, I thought about what I'd put into this project already. What I was doing was trying to make a railroad spike knife. Everyone loves a cool spike knife, but we all know the steel is too soft to hold an edge. I was trying to forge weld the 1095 onto the spike to be the edge of the blade. I'd already drawn out the spike and twisted the head. I flattened the spike portion and made a "taco" for the 1095 to go in (season 3 episode 1 of Forged in Fire). I'd forge welded in the 1095 and was starting to thin out what would have been the edge portion when it fell in the water. Now you guys probably have the skills and tools to bang out such a project in short order, but to me, it was a LOT of work to get to the point. After seeking advice here, and getting the advice I got, I saw myself with two options: 1) I continue on. Maybe my project is trash, maybe it's not. 2) I throw it away, and my project is DEFINITELY wasted. I chose option 1.

Again, I thank you for any and all assistance. I am a sponge and am here to soak up all I can get--like your tip on identifying cracks. That is absolute GOLD. I use ferric chloride, but this tip let me know I was etching all wrong!
 
OK, that full explanation changes this a bit. All we knew earlier was you dropped a yellow hot piece of 1095 in the cold water bucket. The fact that it is welded in a soft steel san-mai makes the breakage problem less. There still may be cracks, but continuing won't likely end in a catastrophic failure where the blade breaks in half.
Let us know how it works out ... and show us some photos.

The tip was to find a hidden crack, not for general etching.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
OK, that full explanation changes this a bit. All we knew earlier was you dropped a yellow hot piece of 1095 in the cold water bucket.
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This goes back to what you said earlier about me not knowing what I don't know. I did not know that changed things.

Here are two pictures:




There are places where the welds did not fully "take," and there are a couple of cracks as well. It is good enough for it's intended purpose of sitting on a shelf in my office at work.


Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
The tip was to find a hidden crack, not for general etching.
Click to expand...

So this is not something that needs to be done for regular etching? This test also demonstrates why it is very important to fully neutralize a blade after etch, boil it for 10-30 minutes, dry while hot, and oil after about 30 minutes to assure no trapped water or acid in in invisible pockets or folds. Some folks bake the blade at 300F for 30 minutes after the boiling to assure no water is left trapped. They oil while hot to make the oil get sucked in any voids and fill them completely as the blade cools.
 
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