hardening saw teeth???

E

elvenbladesmith07

Joined
Jul 29, 2004
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663
well, spent a while deciding, and ive reedited my scale drawings to the right proportions, so that they match the W.S.K. as close as possible.
im going with O-1 for the blade, which will be blued. olive or forest green micarta for the handle. and a oxblood or dark brown for the scout style sheath. And let me tell ya, im really exited about this blade.

I cannot find a supplier that sells olive, or forest green micarta. Does anybody know of a maker? Is anyone interested in making some for me?

also im wondering if a plasma cutter is o.k. to cut out the blank? would i have to stay a certain distance away from where the edge will be? will it burn the steel in a certain distance away from where i cut, like an oxyacetelne torch will? if it will ill just get admiral to cut it out before they ship the 0-1.
any thoughts on the green micarta, where to get it? thanks for the help!
p.s. i just decided to edit my first post instead of making a new thread, that is why these questions are on the second page, and the first.
 
You might want to grind them in after it's hardened, just being carefull not to overheat it and ruin the temper. I live in Ohio, Columbus to be exact, and while I don't feel qualified to do it for you since I haven't worked with 1095 yet, you'd be welcome to use my forge and quench tank to try to do your own. Send me an e-mail if you decide you want to do that, it's in my profile.
 
How are coming along with those teeth? I have done mine on the mill. It takes hours for me. Have you found a more cost effective way of doing them properly? I'd sure take AWP up on that invitation if I were you.

RL
 
I've never done one with teeth that complicated but I guess teeth are teeth.
The other issue is that the ones I have done were in 5160. That makes it a little easier....anyway, what I did was edge quench the blade and then used Bob Engnath's edge quench trick in reverse. Put the already hardened edge in a pan of HOT water deep enough to cover the part you want to keep hard.

Use a torch to heat the top 2/3 of the teeth and when they reach critical, tip the blade over in the water. This hardens the teeth but leaves a softer base.

Just temper the whole blade as normal.
 
rlinger said:
How are coming along with those teeth? I have done mine on the mill. It takes hours for me. Have you found a more cost effective way of doing them properly? I'd sure take AWP up on that invitation if I were you.

RL
Click to expand...
Well I found it can be done relatively easy with a triangular file, but im probably just going to have my grandfather's friends machine them on for me, because it is so time consuming.
I have a forge to heat treat it myself, but if you have a salt bath, AWP, I would take you up on your offer. that’s going to be a serious pain in the butt, trying to get such a wide, thick, and intricate blade evenly heated.
thanks for the help guys
ebsmith07
 
Nope, no salt bath, sorry. I just have a charcoal forge and a mini propane. I didn't know what you had available but if you have that much then I don't really have anything better then you got. Good luck with it, let us know how it turns out.
 
I sure will AWP, incase you were wondering I got the plans for my forge here http://www.twinoaksforge.com/BLADSMITHING/FORGE BUILDING.HTM I changed the design though. I was inspired by a sword maker on Modern Marvels. Mine is a 4 foot long, 1 foot wide forge build from fire brick. Its great because I can build a forging fire in it and use the same forge to HT my sword blades. My version is way more modern, with the electric blower and its basically just a box made from fire brick, no adobe here! The lid is just fire brick placed on top of the box. anyway its a really good forge and i built it for under $75!
 
eleven,

Are you machining your saw teeth in the fasion of the one I recently made or are you making the spine thin at the teeth area? I have until now been reluctant to advise because I really don't know your design. You are working 1095 so you should already know it is shallow hardening and needs to be placed in quench extremely quickly upon removing from soak. Other than that I would do a full quench in about luke warm oil. Before quenching I would soak it for about 5 to 7 minutes and I would not do an interrupted quench. Your 1/4 inch spine will most likely remain soft (in the high 40's to low 50's HRc I'm guessing - after tempering) but the business edges of the teeth will be hardened. I would temper as usual for 1095, about 400 F for the first temper and about 25 degrees less for the second and final. I am guessing blade working hardness in the neighborhood of 59 to 59.5 HRc and the business part of the teeth could be slightly less. Anyhow, without better advise given me, that is the way I believe I would do it.

RL
 
Depending on how hard you want the teeth,you could coat them with a fairly thin layer of clay.While this would leave them a bit softer than the edge,it would protect them somewhat.If you want real hard teeth,go ahead and quench the whole blade as if it were a regular bowie.
SA
 
well im really upset! my efforts to file the teeth in didn’t work, I screwed it up by trying to go to fast so the whole knife is ruined! I had it perfect too. I was filing to fast and screwed up the saw teeth, so I ground out what I had started and started again but now it looks like crap. Im going to start over with a different steel. What steel did beck make his WSK with, anyone know? I think it would function better if I used the proven steel for this style knife.
Rlinger, my sawback design is just like yours.
 
eleven,

That sucks. So sorry to hear that. I know how much work goes into that blade. I have three to make of 1075. The one I recently finished is of O1, O1 will give both a hard spine and teeth (hard spine is good for stiking firesteels). 1075 should give hard enough teeth and much softer spine - full oil quench. Coat the entire blade with a anti-decarb and no clay should be required.

RL
 
RLinger, O-1 sounds good, I can also get it proffesionally HT by my machinist freind.(he has salt pots calibrated for certain steels, not including 1095) after it get the hardening and stress reliev done im going to temper the hatchet to a brown, the spine to a blue, the draw knife to a straw, and totally anneal the junction between tang and blade(had problems with breakage in the past ;) ). i think that would work pretty good ehh?
by anti-decarb, do you mean a type of flux? ive never used anything like that in the past. i dont think it would matter if i have it done for me in a salt pot.
Ive never thought about it before, but its been bugging me. Did beck forge the wsk, or did he use stock removal? what did you use? for my last, i forged it rough and ground the rest. did you do something similar?
 
eleven,

Much of what you say is bad heat treating for the steel type you choose. Tempering to blue is going to help make the blade break or otherwise be damaged under stress. There is quite a bit about your heat treating idea for this steel that leaves things to wonder about. The brown I don't get and the blue tempering is not good at all. As you have already learned, you will have much work in this blade. Before depending on someone else that you may have doubts of I suggest spending a couple extra bucks to have it heat treated properly by an accomplished knife blade treater.

I am a stock remover. If you are going to soak O1 in a salt pot you will need no anti-decarb protection. No. It is not a flux. It is a protective coating from oxygen that can withstand the temperatures at soak. I am finding O1 blades of moderate to thick best soaked at about 1475 F for 9 minutes.

RL
 
RLinger, I was thinking a slightly deeper temper (brown) for the hatchet edge to make it more durable. im still very inexperienced with alloy steels, and any air hardening steels. Most of the time I just heat the simple steels to a non magnetic evenly then quench in water or oil, and finally temper the edge to a yellow and the mune to a blue. I figure it doesn’t matter if the back of the blade wont hold and edge as long as its springy. Is there anything severely wrong with this? The blades come out just fine a good majority of the time. I followed this process on several books ive read. the say their tempering charts a an approximant temp for simple high carbon steel, so I guess I took it as gospel. Which I shouldn’t have.
Can you suggest any good heat treaters for knife blades? Do you know how much the usually charge?
 
eleven,

Sure, you can take the hatchet to a deep golden by placing your blade in the tempering oven in such a manner that the hatchet, or front of blade, is in the hotter spot of the tempering chamber. At the same time your draw knife section should be within an area of the oven that is about 400 F. You need to map out your tempering oven chamber with a couple oven thermometers to find both the desired and the hot spots. I would recommend staying away from tempering tool steels to blue (about 500 to 700 F range). They tend to become brittle at that tempering. This is a big heavy knife and springyness may not be a killer deal.

There is a good side to the one you just ground. You can use it for heat treating experimentation. Touch up enough teeth on it so that it should cut if hardened. Experiment til your heart's content. The fact it is 1095 will give you a real test in ability to get heavy knife blades into quench very quickly. So your first WSK blade is not wasted after all and may well provide big dividends.

I think now, if you can heat treat it yourself then heat treat it yourself.

RL
 
im not questioning you, but how could it become brittle at a spring temper? i thought a shade of blue was used for a springs temper?
 
Perhaps yes but I thought we were now speaking of O1 tool steel(?). If not you may well be correct in questioning me.

RL
 
well, spent a while deciding, and ive reedited my scale drawings to the right proportions, so that they match the W.S.K. as close as possible.
im going with O-1 for the blade, which will be blued. olive or forest green micarta for the handle. and a oxblood or dark brown for the scout style sheath. And let me tell ya, im really exited about this blade.
Though I have run into two problems.
first I don’t think I can forge this blade. The blade will curve when I forge in the bevels, so when I straighten the by hitting the back of the blade. the area that will have a saw will no longer be ¼ “ thick. This will cause problems with the machining, not to mention the saw will not cut very well at all because the base of the teeth will be ¼ and the tops will be thinner. Did David Beck forge his? What about your WSK Rlinger, did you forge yours?
Second, I cannot find a supplier that sells olive, or forest green micarta. Does anybody know of a maker? Is anyone interested in making some for me?
 
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