Canola oil advantages

I think the reason canola is preferred over some of the other vegetable oils is mainly just it's high stability. It doesn't oxidize as fast and lasts longer than most of the others.
 
Tai Goo said:
I think the reason canola is preferred over some of the other vegetable oils is mainly just it's high stability. It doesn't oxidize as fast and lasts longer than most of the others.
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Yes... I agree. Olive oil goes rancid really quickly and smells when it does. Peanut oil is good but really expensive. I did not like corn oil at all. Canola, for me, was the best alternative. I think it is great for deep hardening steels and from that study Tai linked to... not that bad for quicker quenches either.

Houghton's Bioquench was a smart move on their part and I thank Phil for the links. Environmental and heath concerns are forcing people to be aware of the impact they make... however small that is, every bit counts.

I for one, wouldn't be totally heartbroken if I had to go back to canola. When I do demos and reenactments I bring an ammo box of canola..... the last thing I want to do is accidentally kick over a bucket of petroleum based oil in a National Historic Site or Park.

Rick
 
Here’s a few more thoughts and possible advantages for specialized applications.

I think canola is a good candidate for edge quenching because of the high smoke and flash points, low cost and good stability.

Agitation isn’t necessary because there is no vapor jacket, which is nice if you’re trying for a rainbow quench.

The smoke point can be used as a temperature indicator for an interrupted quench. However, the smoke point can vary with different types of canola and it would probably be a good idea to test the smoke point first.
 
Canola is a good medium speed quench oil. The biggest advantage it offers is that it is completely biodegradable. Many, many users have used canola successfully. It is too fast i think for steels such as O-1 and L6, and maybe not quite fast enough for W1 and W2 but can still be used for such. For steels such as 5160, 52100, and the 10xx series(maybe a touch slow, but still working for 1095) it works well.

edit:Also the smoke from canola is not toxic like transmission fluid and motor oil.
 
Mike, I think for 01 or L6, if you used an interrupted quench and got it straight into the temper,... it would probably be O.K.
 
For fun i tried a piece of O-1 into brine.....WOW! didn't come apart but looked like some crazy microfractures all over the surface.. I then smacked it with a hammer on my anvil to see the grain....Like glass, it scattered around my shop lol. Maybe canola will work with an interrupt. You can almost air harden it....and i have on accident before.
 
Tai Goo said:
Mike, I think for 01 or L6, if you used an interrupted quench and got it straight into the temper,... it would probably be O.K.
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Tai,

What is the indicator as to when to pull the 01 out of the oil for the interrupted quench when using canola?
 
Mike Davis said:
For fun i tried a piece of O-1 into brine.....
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Yeah Mike? I'm much more inventive than you, my friend. I clay coated a fully sharpened O1 blade, heated it to bright yellow and quenched in a bucket of ice water.

... and I ain't kiddin' brother.
 
AVigil said:
Tai,

What is the indicator as to when to pull the 01 out of the oil for the interrupted quench when using canola?
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It's the smoke point. Quench the blade as you normally would (full quench), if there are any smoke bubbles wait until they go away and then lift the back of the blade out just for a second and check the smoke coming off the blade. If it's smoking heavily, get it right back under, then check it again after a moment. If there are just a few wisps of smoke it's at the right temp,... or just below that point.

Another thing for steels like O1 and such is that you can slow the quench down a little, just by using it at room temp. It also slows down a bit with time and use. So, used canola might be better for those steels.
 
The smoke point of canola is usually right around 400 degrees, but can vary substantially with different types. You can test the smoke point by heating some in a pot and checking it with an oil/candy thermometer.
 
Rick Marchand said:
Yeah Mike? I'm much more inventive than you, my friend. I clay coated a fully sharpened O1 blade, heated it to bright yellow and quenched in a bucket of ice water.

... and I ain't kiddin' brother.
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You gotz waaaaay too much time on your hands, sucka! :D
 
Rick Marchand said:
Yeah Mike? I'm much more inventive than you, my friend. I clay coated a fully sharpened O1 blade, heated it to bright yellow and quenched in a bucket of ice water.

... and I ain't kiddin' brother.
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HAHAHA! How did that turn out? Explosive? Did you check the grain? Was it the size of peas? LOL!
 
1095 can be particularly difficult to achieve full martensite conversion. In fact, there are some very low alloy, on the high side of carbon, melts of 1095 where the nose goes all the way over and touches the left hand side of the graph. Meaning, no matter how quickly you quench it, there will be some pearlite. An instantaneous quench, from 1475, to room temp in one nano second wouldn't be fast enough for a blade made from that batch, and it would still meet the specifications for 1095. So, I guess your "best bet" would be to use a cold brine with violent agitation, (just kidding).

My point being, as in many things in life, I think there is not a right or wrong answer, there is a large grey area with a lot of legitimate opinions. According to the literature, it is quite possible to achieve good results with most water quench steels with canola. And experience has shown us that you can still botch a quench in Parks and even water. Your heat going into quench, your agitation during quench, your edge geometry, the batch of steel you're working with and even your grain size will affect your blade's reaction to whatever quenching medium you're using.

I think it is time for the people around here using one oil or the other to stop looking down their nose at people who quench in something different than they do. If you change from one to the other and got better results, it is very likely that the oil you changed to was better suited to your particular process than just a weakness of the oil you were using. Let me say that again: if you used to use canola and switched to Parks and saw improvements, that does not necessarily mean there was a problem with the canola, it could simply mean your overall technique responds better to Parks. And there is nothing wrong with that.

I think that the negativity and sarcasm that frequently surrounds this subject is misplaced. I have been as guilty of this as anyone.
 
Good post Nathan,... and in all fairness I think canola should be included in the list of "proper" quenching mediums. If there is such a thing.

It's been studied, tested, substantiated... what else does it need?
 
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Nathan the Machinist said:
1095 can be particularly difficult to achieve full martensite conversion. In fact, there are some very low alloy, on the high side of carbon, melts of 1095 where the nose goes all the way over and touches the left hand side of the graph. Meaning, no matter how quickly you quench it, there will be some pearlite. An instantaneous quench, from 1475, to room temp in one nano second wouldn't be fast enough for a blade made from that batch, and it would still meet the specifications for 1095. So, I guess your "best bet" would be to use a cold brine with violent agitation, (just kidding).

My point being, as in many things in life, I think there is not a right or wrong answer, there is a large grey area with a lot of legitimate opinions. According to the literature, it is quite possible to achieve good results with most water quench steels with canola. And experience has shown us that you can still botch a quench in Parks and even water. Your heat going into quench, your agitation during quench, your edge geometry, the batch of steel you're working with and even your grain size will affect your blade's reaction to whatever quenching medium you're using.

I think it is time for the people around here using one oil or the other to stop looking down their nose at people who quench in something different than they do. If you change from one to the other and got better results, it is very likely that the oil you changed to was better suited to your particular process than just a weakness of the oil you were using. Let me say that again: if you used to use canola and switched to Parks and saw improvements, that does not necessarily mean there was a problem with the canola, it could simply mean your overall technique responds better to Parks. And there is nothing wrong with that.

I think that the negativity and sarcasm that frequently surrounds this subject is misplaced.
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+10000

Nathan.... well written, sincere and spot on. If we only had one option to choose from, there would be a lot of crappy blades coming from otherwise great makers. Find what suits your process, be honest to yourself, your craft, the customer... and to hell with what others think.
 
Yes according to wikipedia, the smoke point for canola oil can vary up to at-least 100deg, depending on extraction and refinement methods.

375 to 475.

And due to the fact that most inexpensive oils have a high likeliness of being blended from multiple sources, it could land anywhere in that realm.

How exactly that smoke point correlates to quench variables I really don't know.


As evidenced by the houghton product, I think we're going to see the ubiquity of vegetable based oils from commercial producers rise, as people, but most importantly industry, becomes hyper-aware of how environmental concerns impact their businesses. I find it pretty ironic that much of the skepticism toward organic quenchants parallel the same skepticisms toward the move to organic pesticides and fertilizers as a viable and potentially superior alternative to the engineered variety. Unfortunately it seems obvious that sometimes "industry" adoption is the only thing that'll make a certain segment of consumers receptive to the viability of any product.

The highly different cooling mechanics of vegetable based oils vs petroleum ones, makes me wonder why we're not willing to more fully accept them as one more piece in a large arsenal of specialized tools aimed at conquering an incredibly complex process, instead of assuming it's simply an "alternative" with inherent draw-backs. We've got an infinite variety of steel permutations, with an infinite variety of HT needs to find that mythical perfect HT formula, yet we try to limit ourselves to a few (and in many cases here 1) highly finite mediums toward finding that formula.


I use Park 50 with W2 and 1095, because I find it easy to get good results, but I'm certain that even with that quenchant, that I'm not getting as good of results as Tai is with canola. Lets never forget that quench mediums are just a tool, used for one small segment of a large job. A pneumatic framing gun might make anybody capable of framing up a house, but that house isn't likely to hold a candle to the one framed up by the old builder with the crappiest old hammer.

And to whomever said they don't use canola because they're not into "cheap and simple", I would argue that "simple" is exactly why most of us are using P50.
 
I admit to being one of those guys. I agree. What works for one might not work for another. As long as someone is happy with their results, then that is all that matters.
 
I think with any medium, you either need to tailor it to the blade or the blade to it,… or a little of both.

Canola is a different animal, but once you get over that,... there's a lot you can do with it. :)
 
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