First knife need help

If you are in a hurry admiral steel had it for about $17 + shipping for a 6' piece of 3/16x 1+1/2.
http://www.admiralsteel.com/pdf/bladesteel.pdf

If you are not in a hurry go to the for sale section and check out the thread "new 1084" as Aldo is having a fresh batch made up and it will be ready I believe in early Sept. Aldo is a great guy and it will be great steel/

As to my ealier post. 1080 is great for home HT because having no real alloy content except a near perfect amount of carbon, it has a low temp when it goes into solution and because of no alloys the carbon is free to move rapidly into position. So easy to get hot enough and needs no soak time at temperature. It does take a fast quench medium though. Water is very harsh and mat crack it, Parks 50 oil is perfect. 120f canola oil should work very well also. Warm oil actually cools faster tnhan cold oil.

Also, 154 cm is great steel. I wasn't knocking it when I said a home treated 1080 knife would be vastly superior. It is just that with a simple heat treat the high alloy steel simply doesn't have a chance to come anywhere near its potential. I use D2 and it requires a precision HT, thats why I made a electronically controlled oven. Plus, I put the knife in a envelope of stainless steel foil to keep out the oxygen. If I didn't after a 1/2 hr soak at the 1850 required for D2 the blade would have become decarbonized as well as looking like crap.

Remember that no matter how great the steel or how well the knife is ground and finished, it is all for nothing if the HT doesn't match the requirements of the steel used. It is kind of like cooking. What works for one dish would make crap with another.

Also there maybe some hard steel (but far from optimum hard) in your current knife. But, your roaring fire probably decarbonized the outside layer of steel. Even with a simple steel at 1450 and no soak you will get a bit of this when the blade is not protected from the O2 in the air. That is why with simple steels makers leave the blade a bit thick and finish the grinding after the HT.
 
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Glock&Surefire said:
I will get the 1080 thanks guys. As you can tell I really want to HT it myself. Does anyone have a good source for the 1080? I could google it but if you guys have a good source I will get it from there.[/QUOTE

I would get some iron ore make the steel myself. I think the rest of the guy would agree with me. By no means would I order steel from Jantz, Texas Knife supply or Cupples. To have that real do it it yourself feeling. But it would cost tons of money. Now it you decide to get apiece of 1095 i.e. 3/16x2x18 for 12
bucks plus shipping. You can heat treat with a fan, charcoal and bucket of water. That is like 10.00 a knife.
But Like the rest of the guy we would do the whole iron ore thing. Don't for any reason use the other suggestion buy the steal and HT it yourself. I repeat DO NOT.

OK I hope you took this in good spirit it was sent. I don't always do what other people say. If I did I would be working in a plant making PB&J Sandwiches and not making knives.

Welcome to our world.
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thanks for all of the knowlede everyone. Everyone here has been very helpful and that is refreshing. Iwill be buying some 1080 steel and canola as my google search found parks #50 is expensive and it looks like you have to buy a 5 galon pail for 100.00. So new 1080 back to the grinder and then the HT, I can do myself.

BTW: someone mentioned heating the 1080 until table salt melts on the blade then quench. Do you pour salt on the blade? I think that is what he meant. If so is the blade red hot when doing so or not?

Thanks a ton guys. I plan on becoming a full time knifemaker so any help is greatly appreciated.
 
Glock&Surefire said:
thanks for all of the knowlede everyone. Everyone here has been very helpful and that is refreshing. Iwill be buying some 1080 steel and canola as my google search found parks #50 is expensive and it looks like you have to buy a 5 galon pail for 100.00. So new 1080 back to the grinder and then the HT, I can do myself.

BTW: someone mentioned heating the 1080 until table salt melts on the blade then quench. Do you pour salt on the blade? I think that is what he meant. If so is the blade red hot when doing so or not?

Thanks a ton guys. I plan on becoming a full time knifemaker so any help is greatly appreciated.
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OK That is the way to do it. Don't Use 1095! Don't heat it it to non magnetic! Don't Quench in water :)

I am one of the cheapest knifemakers out here. I can with 30.00 buy the steel, set up my forge and buy everything to ht my 2 blades.

here are my steps.
1. Order 1095 steel from Jantz Supply 11.95 plus 8.00 shipping.
2. Buy one bag of Kingsford Cowboy lump Charcoal. $6.00
3. Find a small fan to force air over you charcoal.
4. Buy a telescoping magnetic 2.99


Why did I choose 1095. Because it is tough. It also quenches in Water and water is free.
Get your coals red hot with fan blowing on them. Place your blade in coals.
heat it just to point it starts to turn orange. Pull the blades from the flame
and let them cool slowly. Once they have cooled down this is to take the stress out of the blades. Put them back into the coals this heat the blades
up to cherry red. When you can stick the magnetic and it does not stick. You are at the right temperature. Let them set just minute or two. Then quickly pull them from the flame and quench in your water.
OK you have harden blades.
Next take them to your oven put them in oven for one hour 400 degrees then let them cool in the oven. Do this at least three times.
That is how you HT on the Cheap.
 
I'd still go with a 1080 or 1084. But that's just me. It's is just about as simple a steel as you can get, and that means a simpler heat treat. Don't think that the fact that it's a simple steel makes it a poor steel. It's not! It's a great steel and makes a great knife.

I'd be curious if you ever got to a consistent temperature in the fire with your cpm154. It's one of my favorite steels, but it needs 45 minutes or so at 1920-1950F and also benefits from a real cryo treatment (read: liquid nitrogen, or at least dry ice slurry).

--nathan
 
BlackToe Knives said:
OK That is the way to do it. Don't Use 1095! Don't heat it it to non magnetic! Don't Quench in water :)

I am one of the cheapest knifemakers out here. I can with 30.00 buy the steel, set up my forge and buy everything to ht my 2 blades.

here are my steps.
1. Order 1095 steel from Jantz Supply 11.95 plus 8.00 shipping.
2. Buy one bag of Kingsford Cowboy lump Charcoal. $6.00
3. Find a small fan to force air over you charcoal.
4. Buy a telescoping magnetic 2.99


Why did I choose 1095. Because it is tough. It also quenches in Water and water is free.
Get your coals red hot with fan blowing on them. Place your blade in coals.
heat it just to point it starts to turn orange. Pull the blades from the flame
and let them cool slowly. Once they have cooled down this is to take the stress out of the blades. Put them back into the coals this heat the blades
up to cherry red. When you can stick the magnetic and it does not stick. You are at the right temperature. Let them set just minute or two. Then quickly pull them from the flame and quench in your water.
OK you have harden blades.
Next take them to your oven put them in oven for one hour 400 degrees then let them cool in the oven. Do this at least three times.
That is how you HT on the Cheap.
Click to expand...

Don't heat the 1080 until non-magnetic?
can someone please clarify or point me in the right direction on how to heat treat the 1080 steel? Why don't you want it to get to non-magnetic?
 
Hey guys I sucessfully heat treated my CPM-154 CM.

I went to home depot and got a large bag of HICKORY for the barbecue.

I then made a bed of coals in a large frying pan.

I put the knife in the coals and then the rest of the hickory.

I got a hair dryer for forced air induction and kept the fire roarin until the hickory ran out about 45 minutes.

The blade was cherry red and I quenched it in water.

I then tested it and the file will not even begin to scratch it across the whole blade. In fact I tried to drill new handle holes and two new bits later they had barely scratched the metal.

I double tempered it at 450 degrees X2. It has some nice handles I just epoxied and rivoted onto it. I used the marine grade Lock Tite brand because it doesnt set up in 6 minutes and gives me time to work with it.

:):);)
 
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No I wasn't kidding around, I really did the HT myself. I don't ever plan on doing anymore until I buy an oven. I am about 1 month away from being debt free. condo and all. There is no way I would sell these knives for the reasons you mentioned. I just finished the handle and it looks pretty good I think, my Dad said wow it looks great, so more knives and no more monkey HT!
 
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Ummmm...I'm gonna take that post on your heat treatment like you're just joshin around. :confused:

And if you're not...let me give you the reason why instead of letting that hang there. I completely respect and understand the desire to do something completely on your own. I think most of us were that way when starting out. I know I heat treated O1 in a forge a number of times before I built my oven; sometimes it worked ok, sometimes it didn't. But O1 is a much more forgiving steel than the stainless steels out there. There's a very good chance you overheated your steel during your uncontrolled, fan blown, 45 minute soak. This will produce a blade that is hard, but very brittle because when you overshoot the critical temperature, you get very rapid grain growth and this creates brittleness. On the flip side, there's a good chance you didn't consistenly hit your target temperature for the 45 minutes. This will produce a blade that is not fully hardened. You will have a knife that may skate a file, but the steel will not live up to its potential. There in lies the problem. You just don't know what was happening in the fire. And that's not even getting into your water quench *cringe*. CPM154 is NOT designed to quench in water and there's a good chance you have fractures running all through your steel. There's a reason that everyone here suggested sending out your CPM154 for heat treating. There are steels that work well with simple equipment and simple heat treats (there's no such thing as a "beginner" steel, just steels that work better with simple tools most beginners have). And there are steels that require more exacting precision and control.

If I decided one day that I wanted to build a Ferrari in my garage with my hand drill and hack saw, I could give it a good old Texas try. I'd probably have a great deal of fun doing it, too. However, the end result would come nowhere close to a Ferrari. However, if I decided to build a sand rail with the same hacksaw and hand drill, I'd probably come alot closer to what a sand rail is all about than to the Ferrari. And don't make the mistake of assuming the Ferrari is somehow better than a sand rail. They're both designed for a purpose and both, when done right, excell at their purpose.

If you want to keep experimenting with home heat treating stainless or other complex alloys, by all means go ahead. There is no harm in it whatsoever except spending money, and you'll probably learn a few things. However, don't expect those home treatments to give you good results consistently without the proper equipment. And don't try to sell those blades, as there is no way to assure quality control. Hope I don't sound harsh, just giving you some friendly advice.

Oh, and I'm sorry if I just typed all of that above for no reason if you were just messing around. But there have been plenty of people come here and post similar stories in all seriousness. :)

--nathan
 
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If I overshot the heat in the fire, would the two 450 degree heat treatments help it any? I really dont even plan on using the knife so I'm not too woried
 
No, unfortunately tempering will not reduce grain size, and your blade will still be brittle after tempering if it was overheated. The only thing that will reduce grain size is normalizing and re-heat treating with known conditions.

Like I said, don't take this as me bashing on you. There's a lot to be said for experimenting and learning things on your own. However, it's also a good idea to start with a known condition (i.e. a proper heat treatment), and experiement from that known than it is to start from the middle of nowhere. If I need to drive to Dallas, that's no problem as long as I know where I am when starting. If I have no clue where I am to begin with, it's impossible to find my way.

Who knows, you may have lucked out and produced an excellent knife. But the odds of that are very much stacked against you without temperature control.

If you are able, pick up some 1084 or similar and go for it. You'll be able to heat treat it just fine in a coal forge. Heat it to just above non-magnetic (using an extending magnet to check), make sure the color is even throughout (careful about overheating the tip) and quench in a brine. Temper twice at 400 or so, and you'll likely have a great knife. Take that knife out, beat the tar out of it, cut up boxes, chop through trees, and see how it holds up. Then you can see what needs to happen in your heat treating. If the edge chips out, you need to temper at a higher temp. If it rolls, you either didn't get it quite hot enough in heat treating, or you need to temper at a lower temp.

Have fun with this. Figuring it all out takes time, but pays off in the end.


--nathan
 
Thanks, I appreciate the advise.

Why I bought premium steel for my first knife i don't know. But on the 1st of sept, my renter owes me 775.00 and you can be I am going to buy a chunk of stee land mybe an oven.
 
Wow there is some great HT info. in here! So 1080 is the best way to go for a beginner it sounds like. Is it possible to do the HT in my gas grille? It may sound strange, but I have a big garage, and no yard. I have a gas grille, but not really anywhere I can start a campfire lol. At least not near an oven, which it sounds like I'll need for the rest of the steps.
 
One thing that I want to clarify if the fractures statement. If you quench a steel to fast for its makeup it can fracture. Some actually break right off, some are easily visible and some are not. The ones that are not are called micro fractures and will not show up to the naked eye, but they are still lurking there waiting to fail. Ask the guys who water quench simple steels like 1095 and W1 and 2, which are designed for water quench how often this happens. Even these water hardening steels require an interrupted quench where the steel goes in and out of the water to help control the cooling speed. I can not imagine the stress created in a 1900f piece of high alloy steel that hits the water. Your cpm 154 will actually achieve full hardness if cooled over several minutes in air.

I do appreciate your do it yourself and experimentation. It is a way to learn a lot, unfortunately a lot of it the hard way though. You really should read some information on what happens to steels during the HT process to understand why all this is important and why it is so much easier with simple steels as compared to complex steels. It is actually quite fascinating.

On the why did I use a premium steel for my first knife. Ha I made my first couple from damascus. Not only was my HT infromation way lacking, but, so was my grinding and finishing skills. Like me you always want to jump up the ladder and have a hard time taking it rung at a time. I think it is something inside me. I battle with it a lot. Sometimes I can make large leaps and do well other times I fail, but, I always learn and progress so it works out. The knowledge you have gained from this experience will always be there.
 
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