Anyone who heat treats 1095?

B

brash

Joined
Aug 9, 2005
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94
Does anyone know of somewhere I can send out some 1095 blades to have them heat treated? I've got some ideas for knives I would like to try out, but I don't have practice enough to heat treat them myself without a bunch of failures. And I just don't have the motivation to file them out and then fail on the heat treat... I'd much prefer sending them out to someone who can reliably heat treat them for me.

I've looked at Paul Bos, but he doesn't do 1095. I don't know who else heat treats, or even how to go about searching for someone...

Thanks!
 
Thanks, but Texas Knifemaker Supply is one of those places/people (like Paul Bos) that doesn't do 1095. In fact, I have found a couple other places like this... Is 1095 more liable to crack (and thus, piss off the customer) maybe?
 
Doesn't Delbert Ealy do HT on 1095 for hire?

He's a BF member. Search on him here for info.
 
I heat treated some O1 w/ a one brick forge. It came out pretty good on the second try, with a little warping because I ground it too thin. I ended up breaking the tip off ~1/4" trying to straighten it. After that, the warp is so small I had to tell the guy I gave it to it was there before he noticed. Quench it cooking oil and then into the freezer for an hour or so, then temper to your choice. I did it in the kitchen oven. The first one I tried was a wharncliffe and I ground it way to thin, and over heated it. These were small blades; you may still want to send out very large ones. The learning curve is quite steep and you should have a servicable blade after 2-3 tries. Then again I understand the frustration of spending 2-3 hours grinding a blade then having it twist 90 degrees in the quench. As long as it doesnt warp or crack, you can try again if you dont like the hardness. I hear 1095 is quite forgiving.
 
me2 said:
....... I hear 1095 is quite forgiving.
Click to expand...

me2, with all due respect, that's just not the case. 1095 is a hypereutectoid steel (excess carbon) with a low amount of manganese. that makes it quite tough to harden properly. it has the shortest "quench time" of any of the common blade steels. it likes to crack shortly after quenching.

it is, in reality, one of the most difficult "plain" carbon steels to get right.
 
Well... I did heat treat one blade in my charcoal grill. It warped a bit, so I renormalized, bent it back, and normalized again. It came out straight... but when I sharpened it, it was really soft.

I learned a lot, and I definitely feel that after 3 or 4 more blades I could get it right. The problem is that I can't really tell the hardness without sharpening it. And once I sharpen it, I have to file it back again to heat treat it so it doesn't warp. Not to mention that I don't want to sharpen the blade until I've got a handle on it, for safety reasons (I already sliced open my finger on that first knife because I sharpened it before I had finished working on it.) And I'm sure at some point I will end up cracking a blade or two, as well...

And the inconvenience is compounded by the fact that I have no shop in which to work. I file everything by hand. Given all the work I'm going to be putting into these blades, I really would just rather pay the $3 - $4 each to outsource the heat treating... :)

For anyone that is interested, I did manage to find a place that will (I think) heat treat them: http://www.heinzelmanht.com/knives.htm. I am now awaiting a quote...

If anyone here would want to treat them for some extra cash, that would be fine with me, too.
 
If you feel up to trying yourself again, you can tell if it hardened properly without having to sharpen it then redull it to try again. After you quench, but before you temper, try to file on the edge, if the file bites then it's not properly hardened.
 
Fitzo, a most elegant explaination - I must say. It almost made me want to HT some 1095 (NO) :) .

RL
 
First what kind of oven/forge do you have?I have used the one brick forge that Wayne Goddard uses in his book{$50.} Knife shop.I also use my propane forge ,and the Even kilk heat treating oven .I've used them all and always had good results with them all .Heat the 1095 untill it will not stick to a magent.And then put back into the forge for a few seconds untill it reaches the color that it was at,when it would not stick to the magnet.and submerge the blade in oil.the best way that I've found is to just harden the cutting edge of the blade.About 1/3 of the blade If you can lay your hands on Wayne's Or David Boye books.it will take away a lot of the mystery of heat treating.
 
brash said:
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And I just don't have the motivation to file them out and then fail on the heat treat...

snip

Thanks!
Click to expand...

you don't have to make a knife to practise HT. Use a piece of the same steel your knives are made of around 1/8" or so thick (approximate the thickness of your blades at HT). No wasted time by ruining a good knife and you get the practise of HT.

I use 1095 with no problems after a couple of practice runs. A few things I've learned. use heated oil for your quenchant - I start with my oil heated to 120 F or higher. After 3 or 4 blades it gets hotter. You have something under 1 second to got from critical to below 900 F - move with a purpose. Test the just quenched blade with a new file - you can requench if still soft. Some time in a freezer improves the blade. With practice you can see the change as the steel goes critical, while your learning to spy that use a magnet and hold for just a bit (i do a 15 count) as soon as the blade hits non-magnetic.

And most important keep trying - don't give up.
 
Brash - If you were normalizing after the quench on that warped blade,you took all the hardness out of the steel.You normalize BEFORE quench.If you re-do normalizing to get a warp out,you have to re-do the quench.
Stacy
 
Here in my shop I use 1095 90% most of the time. There is a formula to achieve to get the steel to come out right. There are steps that you have to follow. I use a evenheat pro and have a quenching tank set up by it. I have never had any problems with the outcome as long as I follow my guidelines. I also have a Rockwell Harden Test set up as well to check it. My blades come out 59.1/2 to 62.1/2. So, you may want to get one of they units for yourself. It will safe you alot of time.

Barkes
 
Thanks guys for all the advice. I'm really pretty set on not heat treating these knives myself. Once I feel comfortable actually making a knife post-heat-treatment, then I'll likely be motivated to learn to do the heat treating myself, and all this advice will come in handy. :)
 
I do some 1075 often and have also, through trials, found that I need to heat my quenchant oil to about 130 F for satisfactory results. Just know that SPEED to quench is absolutely vital when HT'ing 1095. It is vital with all our blade steels but 1095 has a VERY sharp curve. Practice, as stated above, with sample pieces. Get to < 1 sec. to quench. My best ever is about 1 second to quenchant. I have but do not do 1095. I can't get it there quick enough.

RL
 
Brash,
Hi guys. I was busy in the shop and couldn't get on for a coulpe days. I'm all set up to do heat treat for 1095. I'll do them for $5 each plus shipping. Thanks Fitzo for the reccommendation. Its nice to be remembered.
www.ealyknives.com
Del
 
Not much more to be said here, but one quick note- maximum hardness for 1095 should be around 65 HRC (perhaps 66hrc if you push it with something like water). After a good soak and quench into parks #50 it takes in excess of 440F. temper to get the stuff down to 60 HRC. These are some of the things that I am looking at when I notice accurate soak times and a fine tuned quenches can give very striking results.
 
Tried to send this via PM, but I can't send PMs to you for some reason... anyway:

Hi Del,

Thanks for the offer to heat treat the knives! I will probably get in touch with you in a month or so once I get all the knives filed out. I'll likely have about 15-20 of them. I'd rather send them all at once to save on shipping, and I assume it is also easier for you to do a whole batch at once.

Thanks again,
Colin
 
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