Diferent heat treat on blade and tang?

N

Norse_Nightcrawler

Joined
May 11, 2013
Messages
268
I got bored today and decided to force a vinegar patina on my 15. The blade came out pretty nice but the tang looks exactly the same as before i soaked it.
This got me curious, so now i'm wondering if the blade and tang is heat treated diferently or if there's another reason why the tang won't get the same patina as the blade.

Sorry if this has been disgussed before, but my internet search skills equals pretty much those of a caveman.
 
Norse_Nightcrawler said:
I got bored today and decided to force a vinegar patina on my 15. The blade came out pretty nice but the tang looks exactly the same as before i soaked it.
This got me curious, so now i'm wondering if the blade and tang is heat treated diferently or if there's another reason why the tang won't get the same patina as the blade.

Sorry if this has been disgussed before, but my internet search skills equals pretty much those of a caveman.
Click to expand...

Short answer yes.
I'm not sure if the tangs are annealed but I do know they are a significantly lower Rockwell than the blade. IIRC the tangs are about 30 points on the Rockwell scale.
 
They temper all their knives that way to give them different strength characteristics. For instance there was a diagram somewhere explaining the HT and Temper of a KA-BAR F/U, basically gives the tang a more spring like quality to decrease the likely hood of any failures.
 
Now that's something i wouldnt have thought about. Might have to take that into consideration when i'm gonna HT my own knife making projects.

As for patinaing (is that a word?) i'll think about it a bit to decide if i want to patina the tang or just duracoating it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top