Damascus Heat treating services?

[weo]

Hello all. I tried searching, and didn't find the answer to my specific question, so feel free to re-direct me if I missed it.

Due to an impending move, I'm most likely going to have to give my heat treating equipment back to the original owner (unless he's willing to sell it to me). So I'll either need to invest in some equipment or start sending my blades out for heat treating. I forge my own damascus, and am wondering where y'all would suggest I look into. I know that Peter's and TruGrit will HT damascus, but couldn't find info on who is recommended.

My main concern is getting back straight blades. I want to say I've heard in the past that companies won't guarantee straight blades due to all the variables from forging your own damascus compared mono-steel blades, and it's understandable, but I haven't had too much with warping or difficulty straightening my blades when the do have a warp when doing it myself.
Any suggestions?

Or would I be better off to just bite the bullet and purchase an Evenheat?

Thanks

 

[Joshua Fisher]

Hello Weo, I can’t say that I have experience with either company for ht’ing Damascus but I have been very happy with the job that Jeff at Tru-Grit does, one concern I’d have with peters is that unless I’m mistaken I believe peters uses a torch to spot treat warps which I have seen from others and heard that it can leave round spots when the steel is etched which would be a big concern for Damascus, I know that Jeff personally doesn’t use this practice, he uses flat plates during the temper to straighten blades so as long as you leave a reasonable flat above the bevels I would imagine that it would come back fairly straight, at least that’s been my experience with monosteel blades sent to Jeff. Not trying to paint peters in a bad light as I’ve heard they do a great job just stating that the way they process warps could effect your blades when you etch the Damascus

 

[weo]

Thanks Joshua. And yes, that's been my experience when I've tried using a torch to straighten warps.

Now that you mention it, this is another example of a silver lining to every cloud...I stopped having that problem when my torch set was stolen out of my shop 3 years ago and had to go to a different technique.

 

[JTknives]