heat treating a second time OK?

[monger4142]

so I finally got around to making my first knife and decided to heat treat it myself in a really hot campfire. I quenched it in water and tempered @ 450. I put a good edge on the knife today and tested it out lightly chopping some wood, and it did just ok... I had some edge rolling in a few spots.

So I was wondering If it's possible to send it out to be properly heat treated or if it's too late for that.

I can post a pic in a bit if anyone wants to see it, its a pretty funny and big knife. I made it to practice grinding more than anything, If I get a decent tool out of it it's a bonus.

 

[D.Crawford]

Shouldn't be a problem except for the sharpened edge. You'll want to take that edge off to prevent cracking during the next HT/quench.
A .030" edge thickness should work just fine for about any steel.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

You haven't told us what the steel type is and what the knife shape is....but you can usually re-do a HT.

Read up on HT and you will learn that the HT you did had no chance of working. Without adding some air with a blower pipe, a "really hot" campfire would not reach the needed temperature.

Just because you saw Rambo do it in a movie does not mean it was real

 

[mete]

It can be done , no problem. Stacy is right , learn something about HT before attemping doing the movie thing !!! Let the HTer know what you've done.He'll probably want to first HT to get a uniform structure proper for HTing.

 

[james terrio]

I'm going to assume it's cutlery-quality steel with an appropriate amount of carbon in it... if it's low-carbon "welding steel" or old bedsprings or something, don't bother.

The good news is, it's very unlikely that you over-heated the steel, which would be the main thing to worry about. A pro will be able to anneal or at least normalize it and give it proper HT as long as he knows what kind of steel it is.

Just because you saw Rambo do it in a movie does not mean it was real

Awww, man! Now you tell me

 

[monger4142]

thank you for the responses.

that's funny about rambo, I actually forgot about that. I read on some other forums that people were able to get a HT done in a campfire, by burning it long to get very hot coals and then keeping the fire strong, which I did. I wouldn't try it again because didn't give me a very good result.

the blade was stock removal ground from 01 tool steel

here's what It look like before I put the edge on it. (lol)