1095 temper

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Seeleybc1

Joined
Apr 5, 2022
Messages
85
Hi knife gurus,

First post, been a casual observer for a long long time though.
Anyways, after about a 10 year hiatus, for some reason I started piddling with knife making again. Being that im far from a pro and using a pretty basic/crude heat treating set up, I had a question regarding the temper of 1095. Yes, I realize there’s quite a bit of info out there, but it seems to be all over the place, for example two different tempering charts will vary drastically.. and seems like it really depends on an individuals shop variables and tools used as to the outcome of the hardness/temper of the blade.

After hardening in canola oil heated up to what felt to be about like tepid bath water, I used my home oven to heat the blades to 375, two two hour cycles, then used a torch to soften the tang and brought the spine to a light straw color. No blue on the blade really, just the beginning of the ricasso and the tang.
I took a chainsaw file and checked my unfinished and still thick hollow ground edge; and find that the file will cut into the steel, but definitely skips off. If I really bare down on it it kinda cuts…probably at the cost of my chainsaw file.
Any opinions on if I should temper it a bit softer yet?
I guess my fear is by trying to get the most out of my less than professional set up in terms of hardness, the lack of consistent conditions might leave it too brittle once finished for field use. These knives will be used to skin/break down moose/camp chores/whatever.
Thanks in advance for any opinions !
Ben
 
Hi knife gurus,

Had to copy and paste this from my first attempt and goof up where I posted in general discussion….so

First post, been a casual observer for a long long time though.
Anyways, after about a 10 year hiatus, for some reason I started piddling with knife making again. Being that im far from a pro and using a pretty basic/crude heat treating set up, I had a question regarding the temper of 1095. Yes, I realize there’s quite a bit of info out there, but it seems to be all over the place, for example two different tempering charts will vary drastically.. and seems like it really depends on an individuals shop variables and tools used as to the outcome of the hardness/temper of the blade.

After hardening in canola oil heated up to what felt to be about like tepid bath water, I used my home oven to heat the blades to 375, two two hour cycles, then used a torch to soften the tang and brought the spine to a light straw color. No blue on the blade really, just the beginning of the ricasso and the tang.
I took a chainsaw file and checked my unfinished and still thick hollow ground edge; and find that the file will cut into the steel, but definitely skips off. If I really bare down on it it kinda cuts…probably at the cost of my chainsaw file.
Any opinions on if I should temper it a bit softer yet?
I guess my fear is by trying to get the most out of my less than professional set up in terms of hardness, the lack of consistent conditions might leave it too brittle once finished for field use. These knives will be used to skin/break down moose/camp chores/whatever.
Thanks in advance for any opinions !
Ben
 
There's kind of a lot of variables and unknowns here...

I normally temper my 1095 a little bit higher, say closer to 425 or 450, but that's not to say that 375 won't work. I'm not sure that a file should be biting at all at the hardness you should be getting with 1095 tempered at 375F though. When I used to quench in Canola, I usually heated it to about 120 or 130, as it seemed to give a little bit better of a quench. That said, a 5 gallon bucket of Parks 50 costs less than a full tank of gas these days, so I'd seriously consider upgrading if you can. Maxim Oil out of Texas had the best prices last I checked.

How are you heating to austenitizing temperature? A forge? A hand torch? How do you know your at 1475F? Color? Magnets? Tempil sticks?
Where'd you get the 1095 from? Is it cold rolled annealed? Hot rolled? Amazon special?

At the end of the day, I'd say the best way to really answer your question is to simply finish the knife, sharpen it, and see how it holds up. A brass rod test can tell you a lot, once you have an edge on it.
 
You hit the nail on the head with the variables…and now that I’m paying more attention to this stuff compared to when I was messing around making knives as a younger guy it’s sort of bothering me. It was more fun when I didn’t know any better! Ha!
I say that jokingly but you know what I mean.
Yes I’m heating in small gas forge, 100% eyeballing the color of when to quench. I turn the regulator about as low as it goes, let the interior of the Forge heat up uniformly and allow blades to come up to that high red/cherry/not to yellow look. In a forge like I have, unless I’m missing something, once soaked uniformly it seems you kinda get what you’re going to get in terms of temp. Not very adjustable.
The steel is hot rolled 3/16 stock from admiral steel. I “annealed”, or thought I did, by heating up to cherry and letting cool in blocked off gas forge. I just read in a different thread that this basically does nothing, and I’d have been better off normalizing in air a few times instead.
Maybe like you said, finish one out and test the brass rod method. Either that or normalize again and try the batch over, maybe with hotter oil? Not sure if it’s worth that or not..
Thanks for your response!
 
Some of the first knife making steel I ever bought was some hot rolled 1095 from Admiral, since it was cheap, and they're only 45 minutes down the road from me. After burning up about 5 drill bits trying to drill more than one hole for handle pins, I realized I was going to have to anneal it in order to use it at all. I'd read about guys using "lime" to help insulate the cooling blade, but didn't know there was a difference between the bags of lime at the local Menards, and "quick lime" that you're supposed to use. I filled a 20 gallon steel garbage can with finely granulated garden lime, and imagine my dismay when not only could I barely push the knife into the lime, but it actually seemed to cool the blade faster! :D Took me forever to get rid of nearly 200 lbs of lime. haha

At any rate.... I ultimately moved on to some CRA 1095 and had much better results. That said, you might consider getting some 1075 or 1080/1084, as it's much more forgiving with heat treat, especially when treating in a forge. While I've never tried it, you might also double check your temp with some table salt. It melts right around 1474F. You can also get a PID and a K type thermocouple relatively inexpensively these days, which can give you a very good idea of the temp in your forge.

Good luck!
 
Haha that’s funny on the lime! I’ve got some stories far more embarrassing than that though, lol. Ask me how I know trying to be a cheap ass and using a plastic 5 gallon bucket you already had laying around for a quench tank is a bad idea……derrrrrr….

And yea from reading up more on this stuff I agree, somewhere in the 1080 range would probably be better. Interesting on the table salt, didn’t know that one, so I may well try that too.

Thanks for all the tips and insight!
 
So…
learned a bit tonight in the shop. I may have been over thinking and worrying unnecessarily about all this.
Or I may have merely gotten lucky on this batch and still need to switch steels and work to improve consistency in my heat treat process…which is way more likely!
Anyways I took 3 blades randomly from my batch of 9 and took them down to final hollow grind and put an edge on them. The results of the brass rod test were pretty good I think. Being a hollow grind, the edge is relatively thin, and thin up into the blade a bit, of course. The edge flexed with a decent amount of pressure, but returned to center and no chipping. If Im seeing things correctly, I believe that’s a pass. All three were the same.
another interesting tidbit…I was confused and unsatisfied with my initial file testing..so trying to weed out all possibilities I thought of maybe decarburization? Which to be honest I know little about, but had read where people had a false soft layer on the exterior, but not too far past that was good hard steel. So I restested with the file, both on the edge side of the blade, (which had been ground and finished since the initial test), and on the spine where I ground off maybe 1/32” - 1/16”, to get into some new steel. To my amazement the file truly “skipped”. I now know what this should feel like. Could explain the sort of hard to describe feeling with the file I had initially, where it kinda cut, but not really. Maybe just cutting through that soft layer, then hitting the hard.
Anyways I might wind up ok here, and probably won’t worry too much about these blades. I think for their size and intended use they’ll be ok.
After at first being somewhat annoyed with my set up and discouraged, I’ve actually enjoyed all the messing around trying to figure stuff out. I suppose that can be part of the fun, and I can see where guys get really into the heat treating and want to strive for perfection. It’s pretty cool really.
 
Seeleybc1 said:
Ask me how I know trying to be a cheap ass and using a plastic 5 gallon bucket you already had laying around for a quench tank is a bad idea……derrrrrr….
Click to expand...
I don’t have to ask… made the same mistake myself! :D

Tried edge quenching into a plastic drawer (of all things) full of parks 50. When the sides started bowing in and turning clear, I just about collapsed a lung trying to blow the flame out.

Not my brightest moment.
 
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