15n20/1080 Tempering Temp+Time Question

M

mgysgthath

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Dec 15, 2009
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Hey all,

I have made my first damascus blade blank, it's going to be a small utility knife. It's forged out, normalized and annealed, waiting to be ground, hardened, and tempered. The tricky bit for me is the grinding, not enough practice at that. But assuming I do a half decent job at it, I'm wondering what temp to temper it at and for how long. I'm going to quench in hopefully ~130F Canola and I want it fairly hard, because it's a small utility knife that should hold a fair edge, not a chopper. I was thinking 2 rounds of 375F @ 1 hr each to temper it.

The thickness is around 1/8" at the spine, maybe a bit thinner, and it has a distal taper.

Do you think that is hot enough, or should I bump it up to 400F-425F ?
 
I am a complete newbie, but I tempered some small knives in 1084 at 375 for about 4 hours in 2, 2 hour shifts. the one that did not get busted to look for grain holds an edge pretty well.
 
Thank you Stacy, I will do that. I had to replace my forge floor so I'm waiting for that to cure before I can harden the blade and stuff. I have to work tomorrow so it works out okay. I appreciate the help!
 
Assuming full hardness out of the quench, 375 isn't hot enough, IMO. Whenever I heat treat 1084 or damascus with 1084/15N20 mix, I temper at 400-410 and end up with still around 61 Rockwell. As I make smaller knives usually, I'm ok with the 61, since my knives are mainly slicer/dicers. But, I'm starting to make knives a bit bigger and will be upping the temper to closer to 450.
 
I use 400, let the oven stabilize at 400 for about 20 minutes before you put the blades in so you do not over heat them

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