- Joined
- Aug 12, 2002
- Messages
- 2,259
I'm sure all y'all who've been making knives for a while already know this, but I figured I'd point it out for those of us who haven' treally thought of it.
Everyone out there at one time or another has forgotten to drill a hole before heat treat and regretted it later. Well with an edge quench, this is less of a problem. I have one now that I'm drilling into(actually one in my avatar) I used JB weld for bolsters, but put pins in anyways, why, I'm not sure, but got nasty JB weld shadow around the pins. Anyways, in general it looks bad. SO I decided to fix it. Grabbed a drill bit 1/64" or so bigger than the pins, and started drilling it out. DOne something like this in past, through handles to put a thong hole in, and dreaded when I hit the tang as I didn't wanna drill through hardened steel(that one was full quench). SO just hit tang now on this one, and while it wasn't as easy as annealed steel, was MUCH easier than past time. Realized that it was because of the edge quench, part I'm drilling isn't fully hardened, and hence is easier to drill.
So edge quench/differential heat treat can make a better blade AND can make it easier when you screw up.
Everyone out there at one time or another has forgotten to drill a hole before heat treat and regretted it later. Well with an edge quench, this is less of a problem. I have one now that I'm drilling into(actually one in my avatar) I used JB weld for bolsters, but put pins in anyways, why, I'm not sure, but got nasty JB weld shadow around the pins. Anyways, in general it looks bad. SO I decided to fix it. Grabbed a drill bit 1/64" or so bigger than the pins, and started drilling it out. DOne something like this in past, through handles to put a thong hole in, and dreaded when I hit the tang as I didn't wanna drill through hardened steel(that one was full quench). SO just hit tang now on this one, and while it wasn't as easy as annealed steel, was MUCH easier than past time. Realized that it was because of the edge quench, part I'm drilling isn't fully hardened, and hence is easier to drill.
So edge quench/differential heat treat can make a better blade AND can make it easier when you screw up.