Forge to small or knife to big?

J

jtwodogs

Joined
Feb 1, 2009
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My knife I am going to be treating has a 9.5 inch blade.
The forge I am making is out of a old grill propane tank. From the looks of it, the whole knife will not get in it for the heat treat.
Is it alright if the handle part of a full tang does not get the complete heat treat. It actually will get most of it, maybe just not the last couple of inches.
 
I think that would be perfectly fine. A lot of people ht that way. For tactical knives, where the tip of the butt will serve as a glass breaker, I've seen people flip the knife around so they can heat treat that point. That would mean that the middle of the tang didn't get ht'ed. My opinion,for my own knives, is that the ricasso should be hardened and maybe some of the steel into the handle, but I don't believe it all has to be hardened. My forge is only about 10" deep. I'm not sweating it.

Hopefully other, more experienced, knifemakers will chime in.
 
Your knife will be fine if you leave the last inch or two of tang sticking out.

Most folks put a rear port on the forge when they build it. This is sort of automatic in the design when using a section of pipe, but has to be added if cutting up a tank. This port can be closed off during normal forging use with some fire bricks. When working a longer piece of metal, or Thing a long blade, the port is opened up and the blade is "pumped" in and out. The whole blade can be brought up to temperature this way.

Another trick when all you need is a few inches is to extend the front port out by making a "tunnel" in front of it from a stack of soft firebricks. This works surprisingly well.
 
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