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blade straightening

Joined
Sep 24, 2006
Messages
96
does anybody know if you can reheat a katana blade after the quench to straighten out some of the curve. if so at what temp, i'm afraid of softening the blade.
 
If you've already quenched, and you want to straighten it, reheat it, straighten it, and heat treat all over. If it's a minor warpage that happened in the quench, you have about 30 seconds (before the blade reaches about 400 degrees) to whack it with a wooden mallet to straighten it out, but since you had time to post this, you're already too late.

Think of it as more HT practice :)

-d
 
Ive seen pics of katana straightening tools that polishers use. They looked like long wooden pieces that you held one in each hand and flexed in opposite directions. how bad is the warp?
 
Neil, are you talking about side-to-side warpage, or are you talking about the upward curvature of the spine?
-Mark
 
slight side to side warpage can be fixed in a vice with a pin jig setup. I think wayne goddard's 50$ knife shop book shows a diagram, I'm sure I've seen it in one of the books I've read. basically 2 dowels on either side of the bend on one side of the blade, and a 3rd on the convex side of the curve between the other two, and then squeeze it in a vice.
 
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