1095-scrap it or fix it

Scott Hartman

Scott Hartman

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Oct 28, 2005
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I just heat treated 4 blades, 2 wharnclifes & 2 drop point half tangs.They're stock removal. The wharns are tempering now. Should I attempt to fix the drop points or write them off as being ground too thin?:o

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Dang....that's more curve than I could fix. Bummer...
 
Holy mother! Heh....now THAT is a warp.

I cant imagine youll ever be able to get those out.....

Looks ground too thin pre-ht. I take my 1095 to between a dime or nickel pre ht. Any thinner and you can look at it sideways and make it warp, haha...

Could also be uneven heating.....

You can always try to straighten them....search for the rod method.....but I dunno.....temper them anyways and try the straightening right out of temper.
 
I'd try to fix them as follows - heat 'em up, gently pound 'em flat, grind the edge to about dime thickness (neighborhood of 1/32" or 3/64"), normalize once or twice and try again. If that doesn't work send 'em to me and I'll do something with 'em.
 
O yeah....you do always have that option....I am very destructive and tend to play with anything warped until I break it.....
 
Thanks for the input, wharns came out of oven tempering, cooled, did second heat treat, lost another to warpage. That's a 75% mortality rate..I gotta be grinding too thin before HT. I've gotta another bar of 1095...I'll forge 2 blades and stock remove the other 2. I really suck at this knifemaking:grumpy:
I'm glad I've got a day job...as a maker, I'd be hungry and homeless:o
Daniel, I'm following the info on the other 1095 threads as I need all the help I can get.
 
How are you heating? Either those are too thin or your heating could be very uneven....also, what is your quenchant? And are you quenching tip first, edge down, then slicing through the oil? Unven heating, uneven grinding, off-kilter quenches, any or all could be the cause. With 75% mortality rate, you should be able to determine what is doing it. Id try leaving a full dime thickness or more and see if you stil get warpage. If you do, id check your heat source. That kind of wavy warp sounds like too thin, though....
 
Glad you fixed it.:thumbup: But, if it was mine that would of been in the next billet in the forge.:D
 
Yep, looks like way to thin, posibly to fast a quench oil, posibly overheating on the thin edge. Me I'd break one and see what the grain looks like. If I didn't like what I saw I'd mix them up like IG said in a billet of damascus. There's more than one way to make them into knives! Don't think of it as a failure, as long as you learn something from it, trust me, I have screwed up and continue to screw of blades as well as most makers here from time to time.
 
Finish them just like they are Don't sand anything but the edge) and put on a cotton wrapped pine handle.Sell them as recently discovered Kathmandu suicide daggers used by the Kathmandu Secret Police in the late 1800's.I would ask at least $300 each for such rarities.
 
*hehehehe@Stacy*....that cracked me up.

Marketing is everything, isn't it? :D
 
Thanks Stacy, I'll drop by your table at Harrisonburg, and we can split up the profits:D :D I have other rarities,but I won't release them until the market is right.
I ground those blades to about half the thickness of a dime,way too thin.Thanks Indian George,knife makers don't make mistakes...they just re-design...those blades?(chunks of steel) will be re-designed as 1095 and XX damascus billets
 
Hey all, Shawn here. Gotta a question. I'm making my first knife out of O-1 steel using the stock removal methed. I don't want this warpage to happen. How thick should I leave the edges of O-1 steel prior to heat treating? Should it be the same as suggested for the 1095?
 
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