First knife failed.

R

ralmeida

Joined
Oct 7, 2010
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12
Set up my forge yesterday and went at it. Had the shape I wanted and then let it cool over night took it to the bench grinder to get it all evened out and the back in the forge this morning. Got the whole blade nice and red hot and quenched it in cool water. All went well and then i started sanding it in the garage And hit it against the vice by accident an it snapped in half :( very disappointing. I guess I should have tempered it before trying to sand it down??? Anything else I might of fone wrong to make it that brittle? Or is it suppose to be like that after the quench? Thanks much - rich
 
I'm no expert, but after forging you need to normalize. After it's cool from the normalization heat, you then heat to whatever degree your steel requires (past non-magnetic AKA the Currie point), then quench in the proper media for that steel. I believe that water is much too fast for most steels. Then, you temper at least once in an oven at, again, whatever temp your steel requires. Until the temper, the steel is very brittle and must be handled carefully.
 
Alway temper as soon as possible after quench.Some time they will crack just sitting on the bench.As soon as you can handle by hand get them to the temper oven.
Stan
 
It snapped cause it was too hard.

Temper as stated above RIGHT AWAY ALWAYS.
 
Another thing is the nice and red hot part. Different steels have different quench temperatures. If you go above that temperature you will get grain growth and the steel will be even more prone to breaking.

For someone here to really help you out they will need to know the steel type, then they could dial you in better.
 
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