MSCantrell
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2005
- Messages
- 1,213
Grinding....
Lung protection looking good, eye protection needs an upgrade!
(Not to bust your balls or anything, but... it's important
)Mike
-
The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is available! Price is $250 ea (shipped within CONUS).
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/
clay hardening: getting a pretty hammon NEED PICS
- Thread starter Knifemaker87
- Start date
Lung protection looking good, eye protection needs an upgrade!
(Not to bust your balls or anything, but... it's important
)Mike
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2002
- Messages
- 12,297
Looking good Chris and safty glasses are a REAL good thing to wear while grinding.
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2006
- Messages
- 1,073
thanks guys!
eye protection on...
when i am doing rough grinding i always wear it.
thanks again
~Chris
eye protection on...
when i am doing rough grinding i always wear it.
thanks again
~Chris
- Joined
- Sep 27, 2004
- Messages
- 3,041
I always use this mental picture and the rest is trial and error:
I think of HTing a clay coated blade like creating a thunderstorm on your blade. At quench, the whole blade AND clay is at even temp if you have soaked.
The moment you quench, you have a tremendous cooling effect which begins at the edge of the blade and starts travelling upwards to the spine at a certain rate based on the cross section of the blade. For a full quench that is not clay coated, this will extend right up and past the spine so long as your quenchant is fast enough to get your whole blade cool enough fast enough to harden.
Now you throw clay into the mix and what happens? You now have a much larger thermal mass as well as clay preventing your quenchant from cooling your steel towards the spine. That hot mass in effect is pushing back against the cooling effect of the quenchant coming from the edge side. If that hot mass is enough, the steel under it wont be able to cool fast enough to harden, and you get a transition line where the too-hot steel meets the able-to-cool steel (in laymans terms)
This is why your hamons wont match your clay exactly....if your clay is too thick, its heat and insulation will be too great and push the hamon towards the edge. if its too thin, your quench might be able to harden up under the clay. Its not just the clay treatment, its the whole blade that makes a difference. using the same clay application on a fillet knife cross section and a bowie will result in far different hamons since the steel itself still needs to be cooled fast enough and thicker steel takes longer to cool, ya know?
This is why I say a thunderstorm. Thunderstorms form in a line between hot/wet air when it meets much cooler air that cant hold moisture. Youre doing the same, pushing around heat until the transition line between hardenable steel and steeel that stays hot too long to harden is where you want it.
Take all this with a grain of salt. im no metals expert, its just how i think about the process. its more trial and error than anything else.
heres an example of a crazy hamon that was ALMOST too much clay You can see how thick the clay was and see the result, which was acceptable but shows how much thermal mass that clay had to push the main transition line close to the edge.:
Pre HT:
After HT:
Early in polishing:
Final polish:
I think of HTing a clay coated blade like creating a thunderstorm on your blade. At quench, the whole blade AND clay is at even temp if you have soaked.
The moment you quench, you have a tremendous cooling effect which begins at the edge of the blade and starts travelling upwards to the spine at a certain rate based on the cross section of the blade. For a full quench that is not clay coated, this will extend right up and past the spine so long as your quenchant is fast enough to get your whole blade cool enough fast enough to harden.
Now you throw clay into the mix and what happens? You now have a much larger thermal mass as well as clay preventing your quenchant from cooling your steel towards the spine. That hot mass in effect is pushing back against the cooling effect of the quenchant coming from the edge side. If that hot mass is enough, the steel under it wont be able to cool fast enough to harden, and you get a transition line where the too-hot steel meets the able-to-cool steel (in laymans terms)
This is why your hamons wont match your clay exactly....if your clay is too thick, its heat and insulation will be too great and push the hamon towards the edge. if its too thin, your quench might be able to harden up under the clay. Its not just the clay treatment, its the whole blade that makes a difference. using the same clay application on a fillet knife cross section and a bowie will result in far different hamons since the steel itself still needs to be cooled fast enough and thicker steel takes longer to cool, ya know?
This is why I say a thunderstorm. Thunderstorms form in a line between hot/wet air when it meets much cooler air that cant hold moisture. Youre doing the same, pushing around heat until the transition line between hardenable steel and steeel that stays hot too long to harden is where you want it.
Take all this with a grain of salt. im no metals expert, its just how i think about the process. its more trial and error than anything else.
heres an example of a crazy hamon that was ALMOST too much clay You can see how thick the clay was and see the result, which was acceptable but shows how much thermal mass that clay had to push the main transition line close to the edge.:
Pre HT:
After HT:
Early in polishing:
Final polish:
Hammon's cool...yes...but that's just about the cutest wittle knife I have ever seen. Awwwwe
Long as hes not putting handles on it
Thats a perfect example of a 3 fingure skinner if i ever seen one.
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2006
- Messages
- 1,073
nope... no handles. thanks! i like it too. the one with the hammon line is gonna be for sale here i a bit...
Mr. Schott... you analogy of the thunderstorm is great! i really like it. and thanks for the pics!
~Chris
jdm61
itinerant metal pounder
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2005
- Messages
- 47,357
Kevin Cashen was telling me that with steels that require a super fast quench like W2, you can get weird little quench line patterns on blades even if you don't use clay. I saw tht this past weekend with a blade that I fully quenched in oil and sloshed around.
Yeh i always liked the so called 3 finger paterns like the shrap finger and various skinning, camp and general ultility paterns. That one there would get me in trouble if i carried it for edc though. Looks like something jack the ripper would use for a general purpose knife. Alittle to whicked looking for a EDC. Id like to make or get one like that but with a more gen util style blade profile. That one id put in my display case
moosemaster
BANNED
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2006
- Messages
- 116
Great temper lines! I also was bit by the bug! I think Burch and Hanson and Hayes get some great results!