As simple as it gets..

A

aarya

Joined
Jun 21, 2006
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514
Today is the first day, in the rest of my life.


And that`s not even a joke, cause today i figured out how little one really needs to make knives that are wickedly sharp and between 56-60 HRC.


Ok, to the details.
I used a woodburning stove, the Jøtul 602
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An aluminum can filled with water, that i melted from snow ontop of the stove.
Some wood for the stove, a couple of pliers, a circular magnet.
And that`s it.

The blank i was going to quench was ground out of a rather old rusty circular saw-blade, so i had everything in order to give it a try.
Well, i put some wood into the stove, fired it up, waited for a good bed of coals to form. The time of which i spent melting the snow, so i had water to quench the steel in.
Ofcourse, i sat so close to the stove, that my pants almost caught fire, but that`s an entirely different story. Let me just say, that it`s incredible how hot jeans can get, without bursting into flames. Incredible.. And painful. :cool:

So, i opened the door of the stove, laid the knife-blank down onto the coals, ofcourse burnt my hand in the process. (The damn flames were hotter than i thought.)
I closed the door, and just waited for a few minutes to go by.
I opened the door again, and to my surprise, the blank was actually glowing a orange-red! So i quickly grabbed the pliers, grabbed the magnet with the other hand, and did a check to see if the orange-red was hot enough to be non-magnetic.
Again, i was quite surprised when i noticed that the magnet didn`t stick at all. So i waited a bit, for the color of the blade to go towards a dull red, and the magnet stuck.
Then i knew that i could actually harden this blade with the simple means i had.
So i put the blank back in the stove, closed the door, found out how hot jeans can get, burnt myself on my jeans, sang a song, whistled some and so on.
About five minutes later, i opened the stove again, grabbed the blade with the pliers, quickly checked to see if it was non-magnetic, and plunged it into the now-hot water in the can. It went *fizzle!!* as i stirred the water in the can with the blade, and i kept it in there until it was warm to the touch. Probably about 40-50°C.
Then i grabbed a file, and checked if the blade was hardened.
Ofcourse, i`m no rookie, so i was sure that it was infact hardened. And yay to me!! It was! :eek:

(A couple other guys had to check the blade with the file too ofcourse, to see if i was just full of crap or not.)

I tempered it on top of the stove to a straw color, dunking it in water when it went towards the blue. (And yes, i know, this isn`t really how you temper things, but i don`t care. This was just an experiment. :o )
So, after spending an hour or so sharpening it, well. I guess it`s time for some more pictures. ;)

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It`s just a hair over 7 3/8th inch.

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And yes, i have rather large hands. :p

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Ofcourse, i had to shred some paper. :D

All in all, not bad for a fourth blade.
 
That is awesome, and inspiring. I'm in the processing of shaping a wharncliffe blade from a file and can't wait to heat it up and quench it.

Thanks for sharing,

Charles
 
Nice stove. I too have some copper pots, some old ones , all from Norway.Usually negligent about polishing though !! ...I , as a metallurgist , know enough to not burn myself or my jeans !!! Yes a wood stove can be used for heat treating at least for knives and other thin material. You need a good bit of hot coals and good draft to do it properly.Mine is an 18" box stove.
 
I can see that you have proven to yourself that, truly, a blade can be heat treated inside and atop a wood burning stove. The Jotul being a fine unit to do this procedure on.
Upon drawing a simple graph, that was meant to approximate your time line, including; firing your clothes and boiling the water, I did notice that there was ample time to roast a chicken or at least make some chile for your supper.
Were these given consideration?
I found your post, easy to read with moments of humor added in for flavor, oh, there I go again with the food references. It's about my supper time.

:thumbup: Fred :D
 
nice job. have you tried tempering it in the oven for an hour? tempering in an oven is what was recommended to me and to temper it for an hour and do the tempering proccess 3 times and letting it air cool each time.
 
I use my wood stove to anneal. The blade gets buried in the ash then I rake the coals over it and build up the fire. After two days I let the fire burn down and dig out the knife. The ash keeps most of the O2 away from the steel so no carbon is lost. Every blade has annealed perfectly compared using vermiculite in an ice chest. That process has always been hit and mis and quit often the blade still cooled too fast. Even when I sandwiched it between two chunks of 1/2" leaf spring heated to CT it did not always work.
 
Now that you mention it, there was ample time to prepare a good meal. Alas, it was around 14°F, -10°C where i was, since it was a garage/workshop of some sort. So i was freezing on my toes, burning on my legs, comfortable on the rest of my body, except frequent transitions between burning and freezing on my hand and fingers. (The picture of the stove i found through google, it`s not my stove.)

So, i was kinda focused on getting the knife done, and thawing up my toes.
Perhaps some chili or suchlike would`ve helped in that respect? Hmmm... I must remember that.

And yes, i`ve tried tempering in an oven, and it is something i`ll work into my whole hardening process eventually. Nowadays, i`m just trying to figure out how little equipment i can actually manage with, and instead learning the simple things that make my knife-loving heart go *tick-tock*.

No, wait... That`s the grandfather clock. Note to self, never use a grandfather clock as a pocketwatch. :p

If simple is good, provided that good is simple. Does that mean that good is provided simply through its ability of being simple?
Dang, now i went and confuzzled myself. :o
 
aarya said:
.....
If simple is good, provided that good is simple. Does that mean that good is provided simply through its ability of being simple?
Dang, now i went and confuzzled myself. :o
Click to expand...

Sorry if I made it sound obscure. It was meant philosophically and not necessarily relative to your experiment, though it might be. It would depend on how good the blade is.

A simple way to accomplish a good end is desirable. It has to have a good result, though. Form must follow function. Einstein said "everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."

Oversimplifying a process can lead to problems.

It is an interesting experiment. Thank you for sharing. :)
 
you think its bad on blue jeans you should see what it does to eye brows! whole new respect for the power of radiant heat!
 
aarya said:
If simple is good, provided that good is simple. Does that mean that good is provided simply through its ability of being simple?
Click to expand...

Good post :) Simple is good, provided that good is simple.........hmmm ;)
 
Hmmm ....

So what this post is REALLY implying is that if you dress up your forge to look like a Nice WOOD BURING STOVE, you can move forging operations into the house without the wife plying the proverbial rolling pin to your head .... at least not right away, anyway.:D

Honey! Look at this beautiful new "STOVE" I got for you!! :thumbup: heh, heh.
 
......(next day) ....

Look honey, a new Little Giant "Meat Tenderizer" (or Gallagher fruit juicer),! :thumbup: :thumbup:
 
this would only work for a single man or a man who is married a woman who also makes knives. now that sounds like the perfect wife. almost.
 
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