Anyone sick of giving advice on 1095 yet?

delbert ealy said:
To all those who doubt that Rob is working with 1095, I will say that I found his results are EXACTLY what I would have expected, and I can say with confidence that I went through at least 1000 lbs of it.
Thanks,
Del
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Gotcha

I was taking his word that the "9 second" oil was similar to Parks #50

I have no experience with any other quenches except Parks and water so.....
 
Anyone sick of giving advice on 1095 yet?
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Quite honestly, yep, just a bit:). However, there are a couple of points that are still being overlooked here. 1500F is a bit high for austenitizing this carbon level, and increasing the temp will make it worse. Worse as in you will see a drop in hardness by pulling all that unnecessary carbon into solution and stabilizing the austenite. This will result in a greater delay in final hardness (I have seen blades jump 2 HRC points after setting over night), and completely stabilized RA that will not give you enough martensite to yield full hardness eve after a week of waiting.

Increasing austenitizing temps is great for increasing hardness in hypoeutectoids and euctectoids but with hypereutectoids there is a point where carbon in excess of the eutectoid in solution will overcome the effects of pearlite suppression with increasing amounts of retained austenite.

The proper austenitizing temperature for 1095 should be more like 1475F.

even with this .25" is at the limits almost any oil can achieve with 1095, the lower manganese content just cannot suppress enough pearlite, what one has to live with is faith that the edge achieved the desired results. Use the hamon for a guide if you have a line 1/4" from the spine you obviously have something other than pearlite below it, and unless your austempering the odds are pretty darned good it is martensite. If the hamon is less than 1/2" from the edge on a full quenched blade you may have some concerns with fine pearlite.

Check it all with a file if you want, just be fully aware that it really can't tell you squat about fine pearlite's effect in penetrative hardness. Parks #50 is around a 7 second oil, this is measured I believe by the wire "quenchometer" test, others can be measured by the older ball test. This means the oils have the ability to cool from a very high temp (from 1500F to 1650F) to a predetermined end temp (670F for the nickel ball), a range of around 1000 degrees or so in the given amount of time. We need to go from our austenitizing temp to below perhaps 900F in the given time for the steel.

I take all of my readings just behind the ricasso where the guard will seat, and if I don't have exactly what I want for the edge there with O-1, L6 or other oil hardening steels, I need to increase my soak times. But to be honest with 10XX series steels I live with a lower HRC at the ricasso and use step ground test coupons of the exact same material to double check my findings, combining this with my other analysis methods then gives me the entire picture.

A lot of what is here is covered, in detail in the "steel types" sticky.
 
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How is it the quench oil if I can get 1095 hard even with used motor oil. I thought Parks was like a 9 second oil ayways?
 
Kevin R. Cashen said:
Check it all with a file if you want, just be fully aware that it really can't tell you squat about fine pearlite's effect in penetrative hardness. Parks #50 is around a 7 second oil, this is measured I believe by the wire "quenchometer" test, others can be measured by the older ball test. This means the oils have the ability to cool from a very high temp (from 1500F to 1650F) to a predetermined end temp (670F for the nickel ball), a range of around 1000 degrees or so in the given amount of time. We need to go from our autenitizing temp to below perhaps 900F in the given time for the steel.
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That's a good point about the file method. Kind of a bummer for those of us who don't have a Rockwell tester though.:( I guess Parks is faster than I thought, but still some other famous makers use Tough Quench on their 1095 I've heard...how fast is that oil rated?
 
Sorry Rob. I guess I can't really give you any advice...All I can say is the 1095 I got from you got about as hard as I expected it would and I was happy with the end result. It would be really great if you could get some more sizes and thicker stock in the 1080/1075 though if at all possible.
 
Wow that's like the 15th thing I've learned in the last 3 days!!! It feels... kinda weird... still odd about the different results for some people, but I must listen to the voices of experience and reason...
 
Thanks all

Kevin, the 1475 was one of the things on my list for today - it will now be the top thing. The other plan was to grind a test piece with a parallel step at 1/8 thickness. (Although I already know I can get pretty good results with 1/8 thick 1095). I did retest RHC this morning and ground down the one that I did with no anti-scale, removing another 1/16 or so. Same results.

I'll get the best I can out of warmer oil, cooler aust. temp and no antiscale - declare the actual RHC below the guard and predict the edge hardness from the 1/8 test coupon. Then I'll repeat the numbers in the same way after temper.

Randy, you have been very helpful and I appreciate you and everyone sharing their experiences and suggestions.

The one thing I haven't heard yet is someone saying - I heat treated my 1095 1/4" thick blade - oil quenched - and measured RHC XX at the full thickness guard or spine.

I'm really not willing to accept 10% or more mortality of customers blades, so I don't see brine in our future.

Rob!
 
Have you tried the same for 1/4" thick 1084? 1500F high heat and oil quench?
 
delbert ealy said:
Rob,
That houghton K quench isn't fast enough, you listed it as a 9 second oil, and 1095 is a 1 second quench. Sounds like it works fine on the 1/8" stuff which is not suprising to me, but to do the 1/4" you will need to get some parks #50. I know its almost impossible, but its either that or brine and lose 40% of your blades. I worked with 1095 for quite a few years after I started.
To all those who doubt that Rob is working with 1095, I will say that I found his results are EXACTLY what I would have expected, and I can say with confidence that I went through at least 1000 lbs of it.
Thanks,
Del
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Geeze Del, I'm sorry - just re-reading the thread and somehow I had missed your post. Thanks for the input. I had read somewhere that Parks 50 was a 9 second oil and I stand corrected - apparently it is a 7 second oil. 9 seconds is still fast, but as both you and Kevin pointed out, 1/4" 1095 is on the edge for oil.

Anyhow, I'm told there is a step between fast oil and brine - specifically polymer quench and I'm considering giving that a shot. Any experience with it? Apparently a lot of shops are switching to polymer quench with good results and less damage/deformation than brine.

Rob!
 
I wanted to try antifreeze (polymer) as quench but ran out of 1095 to test. 150F saturated brine seems to reduce cracking compared to cool water.

One thing I've found is that fine grain size makes 1095 even more shallow hardening. If you're OK with larger grain size you might be able to still quench it in oil.
 
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