Hi,
So I have made a few knives and am now going to be making a sword (a wakizashi). I have been trying to decided on the best differential heat treating method for it.
On my knives, I used the soft back draw with a torch after through hardening and tempering in the oven. I like this method because it leaves the back(spine) at around 55rc so when i need to smack the back of the blade with a hammer like object to help chop through something it doesn't leave my blade dented. Unlike the super soft 40-45Rc backs you get from differentially hardening a blade. But i heard that, that technique can just differentially temper a "skin" and not through the whole spine thickness. Giving me a false perception that I can bend my knive 90 degrees if i ever needed to for some reason (it's not like i have the balls to try that test on one of my hard worked knives yet so this is an issue).
So this is my question; can you control the hardness (say to 55rc) of the spine using the differential hardening clay technique, by the amount or consistency of clay applied? Or is there any way at all?
Thanks
So I have made a few knives and am now going to be making a sword (a wakizashi). I have been trying to decided on the best differential heat treating method for it.
On my knives, I used the soft back draw with a torch after through hardening and tempering in the oven. I like this method because it leaves the back(spine) at around 55rc so when i need to smack the back of the blade with a hammer like object to help chop through something it doesn't leave my blade dented. Unlike the super soft 40-45Rc backs you get from differentially hardening a blade. But i heard that, that technique can just differentially temper a "skin" and not through the whole spine thickness. Giving me a false perception that I can bend my knive 90 degrees if i ever needed to for some reason (it's not like i have the balls to try that test on one of my hard worked knives yet so this is an issue).
So this is my question; can you control the hardness (say to 55rc) of the spine using the differential hardening clay technique, by the amount or consistency of clay applied? Or is there any way at all?
Thanks
