First attempt at heat treating a blade

Ivan Campos

Ivan Campos

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Apr 4, 1999
Messages
2,509
I have always relied on other people to do my heat treatment and recently decided that I should learn how to heat treat on my forge. I had seen it done many times but still had some doubts, so I contacted some friends whith more experience, like Ricardo Vilar and Ariovaldo Lopes, and gave it a try yesterday.
My first attempts did not turn out so well - the first blade was too soft and the second cracked in the middle up to the temper line - but the third one went out pretty hard from the quench and got a nice golden to pale yellow color.
I have cut some 3/4" rope and other stuff with it and it is doing as it should. This is a short light blade so I can´t do any chopping with it, but I believe it is perfect for its purpose and the whole experience turned out very satisfactory.
 
HT'ing yourself is fun and very interesting work. I would like to know also which steel do you use and how did you HT them.
Keep going...
Best wishes
Emre
 
The steel I used was 5160. I heated it to non-magnetic, quenched in oil, polished one side then turned the gas down and slowly moved it in front of the forge until I get an even ligh gold color.
As soon as I am confident it worked well (still testing some more), I´ll work on some other blades.
 
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