Do you harden your mokume?

B

bjalongi

Joined
Oct 23, 2006
Messages
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I've been playing around with mokume lately and would like to know if anyone hardens theirs.

I have been quenching it in water so it's easier to work with and noticed it scratches easily. I've been making it with brass, nickel silver and copper.

I've shied away from reheating it for a final hardening before installation on a knife, because I don't want to heat it too many times.

Does anyone not bother with annealing and just work with it in a hardened state?

Thanks
 
Hi Erdo20,

I don't mean hardened like how steel gets hardened. That would never happen.

I was referring to how semiprecious metals get more ductile when quenched.

Thanks.
 
Mokume will work harden as you work it down. Most anneal it afterwards. You can etch it a lttle beore final fixing to your knife or whatever you are making and it looks nice. I like to etch mine until you can feel the layers when you drag your fingernail across it.
 
bjalongi said:
Hi Erdo20,

I don't mean hardened like how steel gets hardened. That would never happen.

I was referring to how semiprecious metals get more ductile when quenched.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Thank you, bjalongi! I learned something! Sometimes I fumble to do so....
 
Quenching brass, copper,silver or most non ferrous metals softens them.
I don't know how to harden them except that they get work hard. Be interisting to find out how
Take Care
TJ
 
I always thought that allowing metals such as copper to cool slowly would cause them to harden, slightly.

For example:

I've made myself two coin mokume rings in the last few years. After shaping one of them, I got it red hot and placed it in vermiculite to cool. The other was annealed after the I formed the initial billet and never "hardened". The ring that I let cool slowly holds a high polish very well, whereas the annealed ring scratches easy and is no longer as polished. Interestingly, I wear the annealed ring the least and it looks the worst. The annealed ring also tarnishes much faster.

There must be some sort of correlation.
 
I know Sterling can be hardened to a degree by putting it in an oven at 500 deg for a while and air cooling. I'd have to double check on the time and temp I haven't done it in a while. It actually gets pretty springy with this method. This works with white gold too, making it VERY hard.

Also, yeah as a general rule non-ferrous will harden with air cooling.

Grant
 
As mentioned, the mokume won't really air harden for you, work hardening is the only way to really "harden" it in my experience.
 
All the above about annealing non-ferrous metals is correct. You bring them to dull red and quench (or let air cool). If you cool very slowly, or you heat to 500-700F and hold for about 30 minutes and let cool slowly, then you can harden it somewhat. Just sanding and polishing the metal will work harden the surface a bit.

I never harden my Mokume beyond the work hardening it gets in shaping and polishing.Etching is a good thing sometimes.
Stacy
 
Have you considered burnishing? This way you could probably get at least the surface somewhat hardened, without really changing the shape as you would by work hardening the whole piece with a hammer. Another alternative might be hammer finishing before the final polish, or even shot peening.

I believe the Rio Grande catalog has some instructions for hardening various gold and silver alloys via heat treatment. I don't know if those would translate to copper, but it might be worth experimenting with their figures as a starting point.

One last thought-
From reading in the collector's forum, there are a number of folks who don't really care much for mokume fittings. If this is for a custom order that's one thing, but you might wanna ask yourself if it's worth putting a whole bunch of extra work into a knife if it may in fact reduce its salability.
 
I have only sold a few knives up to this point and that was just to fund some shop equipment. The blade I'm working on is actually for me.

The main reason I've been playing with mokume is for lanyard beads, menuke and jewelry.

Thats a good point to keep in mind if I start selling them on a regular basis though.

I guess I won't worry about it too much. The engineer in me is probably over thinking it.

Thanks.
 
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