Bummer!

Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith

Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith

ilmarinen - MODERATOR
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Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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Aug 20, 2004
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I just came in from the shop. I did the HT on a blade belonging to another forumite. The knife was well ground,with a nice thick edge.The quench went fine, the first temper was done, then the second. I cleaned it up to check the hamon and ,DRAT! (that's not exactly what I said) , there was a little crack in the edge. The blade was 1095, and I know that it happens, but in the last several years I haven't had a blade crack. It is a bummer that it happened on a fellow maker's blade. I am cutting out a couple of new blanks for him. I will grind and HT one and send him the other.
I am mostly just blowing off steam here. Off to bed, 6AM comes soon enough. Good night.
Stacy
 
Is empathy of any comfort? :o At least we aren't brain surgeons. People really get POed when brain sugeons say "OH DRAT!" :rolleyes:

Rob!
 
Stacy,
I've been working on Hamon development and tried some water quench last week. Well the first didn't get hard then the next three cracked. So much for water. At least for a bit. I have been very succesful also prior to that day. been about 5 or 6 years since the last cracked or irreperably warped blade. Somtimes that's the way it happens.

Chuck
 
That sucks, but, isn't it interesting how much it actually helps to share your knifemaking frustrations on this forum. After "spilling" I become more determined to get back at it.
 
when things like that happen, it prompts us to reflect, on our techniques and helps to keep us sharp, pun intended.

Fred
 
Did you try Superglue? :D I was heat treating yesterday myself doing an interrupted water quench. One of the blades slipped out of my tongs and stayed in the water and I figured it was a goner but to my surprize it did not crack although while quenching another blade I had a brain freeze and forgot to count while quenching. Ray's 5, cracks 1.
 
Instead of "drat!!!" next time say "curses!!!!! foiled again!!!!" Save "drat!!" for when you screw up the plunge cuts on the grinder:D I have never had a blade crack during HT, but I did crack a couple by hitting them when they were too cool. Also had 2 that had HUGE grain growth at the tip......coincidentally, they were both O1 blades.
 
Thats not a cracked blade, its a WWII relic that cracked in the heat of hand to hand battle. Even the handles broke off, the fight was so brutal. Put it on ebay.
 
I know this may sound silly to some, but what was the condition of the edge before you heat treated the blade? Did you profile the edge with a coarse sanding belt and stop at that? I had a blade to do that once and looked at the cracked area under a 50X magnification and saw that the edge had a rough area where the crack had formed. The stress crack came from what appeard to be the deepest part of this area that I didn't clean up with the finer belt. Since then, I have made sure that all the edge surface was sanded out to a 400 grit finish. To be sure that I have no rough surfaces left on the edge, I put dykem on the edge prior to using the 400 grit belt. I then put on my magnification glasses to check the edge after sanding to make sure that I did get all the marks removed from the coarse sanding. When you get older, you need all the help you can get to see. :eek: Since that time, I've not had a blade to crack. Could have just been a fluke, but this method has helped to keep the flukes (cracks) out for me. If you still have the blade you might want to check under magnification and see if this was the cause of your failure.
 
I put a 120 grit hand rub before my HT. Ive never cracked a blade and never seen a crack run lengthwise down a blade from ht...its always the direction of the grind, from what ive seen
 
Not to bump an old thread or anything but...

I was the maker of this blade and must say that Stacy is handling this in the finest manner I can think of. I really appreciate it.

The blade was actually hand rubbed up to 600 grit if I remember correctly.

Oh well, It's being made up for.

Alex
 
sombody mentioned counting when they were quenching knives...
am i supposed to count?
what to?
why?
is this why my blade cracked? (w2 tanto blade)
and btw.... super glue is for the fingers not the blade (i keep some on my bench for my fingers when they get....damaged
 
Knifemaker87,
The countng is part of an interrupted quench on clay coated blades. In for 1-2-3, out for 1-2-3-, back in till cool.(or something like that).It allows the edge to harden quickly but the thicker steel under the clay to miss the nose of the curve and transform into pearlite .

Without knowing the details of your quench,it is hard to say why it happened. It is a known fact that cracking occurs more in the first dozen blades than the next 100.(experience and more attention to the HT requirements will lower the odds).

They were just kidding about the superglue.

Since it is my thread, I'll tell you a great story about superglue. Before it was out in the stores and everybody had seen that comercial where they picked up a construction worker by his helment,I got some to use on a government project.We all were quite impressed with the stuff. We glued all sorts of stuff to the work table tops and the like. Then we took a quarted and glued it to the floor outside the door in the main hallway. Every sailor who passed by reached down to scoop it up (back then 1/4 of a dollar was real money) They would try to get it up with their fingernails to no avail (Sailors were not allowed to cary anything in their pockets). Eventually one went back to a shop and brought a chisel to pry it up. He poped out a nice chunk of linolium tile with it. We got a days worth of fun watching out the door as those guys tried to figure out why the quarter was stuck to the floor wax.
Stacy
 
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