Heat treating at home?

Raven
I think normalizing is a good idea.
I dont find in the American Society for metals that it requieres three times to bring the grain back after forging.
I do find that overheating and to many heats cause many problems.
Are you lowering the temp each time you normalize? I have heard that 52100 triple quenched starting around the normalizing temp and comming down a bit each time will shock the grain to refine it.
Well I guess om just a book guy.
I just follow the proceedure that the asm book recommends.
I have found that much of the information from folks playing Mr heat treat is B_S . Please dont take this the wrong way. I just have been lied to so many times to keep me in limbo that I use the book and I dont have problems.
Heres a sample
I heard a FAMOUS knifemaker tell a client at a show one time that he was spliting the atoms in the edge of the blade to make it tougher and harder by cold packing the edge of the blade.

IS THIS SOMETHING YOU WOULD SAY!!!!
I just want to see what kind of explosion a split steel atom makes hahahahahahahahahaha


Just a question not a slam!
 
I didn't know that bringing down the annealing was in the asm book but thats what
I do with 52100. first anneal is at critical and then to 1380 then to 1300. I know I know get the book!!!!
Raven
Did you do the experimenting concerning the
annealing of 1084 and check out the results?
I don't want to ruffle any feathers or scales, but a person learning can hold up what a teacher says without knowing for sure
themselves that it is true.
I have never tried to heave dirt by saying
"Don't walk in tradition just because it feels good" You may find that by experimenting on your own that there is a process out there that will change how heat treating is done for a particular type of
steel. The thing is when you find something
pass the knowledge on.
Chiro
I would definately anneal the planner steel
before using and get some magnification and
check for cracks
goshawk

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http://www.imt.net/~goshawk The race is not always to the swift, but he who hangs loose.
Don't walk in tradition just because it feels good!!!!!



[This message has been edited by goshawk (edited 19 July 1999).]
 
Please forgive my ignorance, but I am trying to learn the knifemaking trade right - as my plans are to produce and sell a quality product.

From what I have read (from other sites, books and even in this forum), the heat treatment is the most critical part of making a blade. It would seem to me that using a torch is kludgey (spelling?) at best. I recall an article written by someone assocaited with MadDog Knive that a proper heat treat included the whole blade and that at that point a differential temping was done (if the steel was appropriate). Somewhere in this forum soemone was going off on ATS-34 being an inferior steel and others liking it. I think again, this all boiled down to how the steel was heat treated.

I am planning on purchasing an electric furnace very soon (I posted awhile ago on a thread called "...Kilns" or something. Anyway, I am very interested to know what the scoop is on heat treating.

Thanks for the help.
 
It's not clunky or whatever but not everyone
likes rasin bran either. It become a process
used by several people that forge blades. some that forge still treat the whole blade and then draw or soften the back -- the purpose is to make a tough knife while maintaining a hard edge. Not everyone can afford a Paragon furnace. I heat treat with
a torch and edge quench my blades and don't
have to draw the back. I still do it even
though I have a Paragon. I will put my blades up against anybody else's -- not that
my blades will come out on top but the fact
that they will preform very well.. I'm not
in it for a contest.
If I were doing stock removal it would be a
whole different ball game. I would definately use a furnace and probably would
send my blades to paul bos or darrel ralph or phil wilson ok now i've left someone out
and will catch it for that too.
Yes and i'm going to get an AMS book also!!!

goshawk

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http://www.imt.net/~goshawk The race is not always to the swift, but he who hangs loose.
Don't walk in tradition just because it feels good!!!!!

 
Sorry about this going off the original topic.
First of all let me say that my feathers have not been ruffled.
I am very thick skinned. And let me say thanks for questioning what I wrote and what others write. I feel that by you guys doing
this, it makes a better forum. And let me also say that I don't beleive what everyone tells me and I hope others don't either, but will take what someone tells them and test it out to see if it works or doesn't work.
Darrel,
I haven't used 52100 but know a smith who has and he does lower the temp each time. No I would not say what you heard the 'famous smith' say.
Hopefuly I have more integrity. What I have stated is from my own experience and from what I have gleaned and tested from what other smiths have tried to teach me.
Goshawk,
Yes I did my own testing of the 1084. This was the first steel I learned.
Let me tell you what I do and what equipment I use so maybe you can better understand where I am coming from and if I could improve on someting.
I have homemade propane forge that uses a 100CFM blower connected to a reostat. I can regulate both the air flow and amount of propane into the chamber (7" dia. chamber lined with koawool, coated with satanite,
18" long). When I normalize, I bring the temp of the chamber down so it has a nice red-orange glow (1084 steel will just go above criticl with the chamber like this). Then I inset the piece I am working on
into the chamber and let it slowly heat to critical. I use a magnet to test this and do not rely on color. Once the piece is even and non-magnetic I try to memorize the color so I can use it as a reference
for the next heat but still use the magnet. I take out the piece and let it air cool making sure there is no air current hitting the blade. It cools to around 800F and then goes back into the fire. This is repeated 2 more times.
Now for my testing of annealing.
I did the above process and on the 3rd time reduced the temp and place it into a bucket of lime to cool. I also tried this using the same heat as normalizing and got the same results. I also did the normalizing 3 times and then annealed it. The results are always the same for me. When I anneal it, the steel is harder than if I normalize it a 3rd time. I have also tested with blades I wanted to re-heat treat. I do a differential heat treat so the edge is harder than the back. If I
anneal it the edge always stays hard. If I normalize the 3rd time it softens up like the rest of the blade.
As for my testing a blade after heat treating, here is what I do.
1. Sharpen the edge so it will shave the hair on my arm.
2. Pound the edge into a hardened piece of steel. Usually goes in 1/16"
without cracking, chipping, or rolling the edge. It just rounds some.
3. Put the point into a vice (about 1 1/2" of the tip) and try to break the blade.
My biggest one so far I have done this with is a 7" blade. I could not break it using my strenght and leverage. I used a cheater bar and it finally broke. This is what the inside looked like, very small grain,
frosted color and it looked more like ceramic than steel. I am told this is what a good blade should look like if the heat treating has been done right.
If any of my processes are wrong or I am doing something that doesn't need to be done or I am missing something, PLEASE let me know so I can test it.
Hopefully this helps or makes sense for you and answers your questions. If not let me know and I will try to do better,
Ravenclaw
Ravenclaw
 
Raven
Please dont take it personal? Its just a question and I was trying to convey politily that there are folks out there that DO NOT WANT YOU TO BE BETTER THAN THEM!
hehehehe
I think its great to do things your own way.
Mine is just to do it the way I think is best for me as is yours.

Go
As for lowering the temp at normalizing NO its not in the book. I have heard folks call it triple quench ect. As for me Ill stick to the book.

Once again please dont get offeneded if we all have different ideas. I just like to ask questions?

Splitting the atom in the blade was just a sample of what a NEW knifemaker may here and then tell others that you said hahahahaha

YIKES! Thats why I am carefull about using tools to back me up as much as possible.
I can then use higher power (the book) to prove it. :]

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Web Site At www.infinet.com/~browzer/bldesmth.html
Take a look!!!




 
Darrel,
I have not taken anything said personal, like I stated earlier, I am very thick skinned. As for the second part, hopefully I didn't came across as thinking I am better than others in this endevor. If I did, I appologize. That was not my intention as I don't think I am better and do things better. I just do things different. As the saying goes "there is more than one way to skin a cat". I think it is good when processes are questioned as it can sometimes show flaws in the processes and people can learn and fix the problems or learn before they do the problem.
 
raven
sounds like your making some realy good blades. My thinking as to the annealing in
lime and coming out edge hard is that the
lime is cooling the edge too fast. Have you
tried slabing a blade between two pieces of
kaowool to cool slowly. At one time I tried
a slurry of lime to harden a blade and it worked quite well but really meeesssy. How big a piece of 1084 are you starting with to forge and are you forging the edge fairly thin before normalizing.
I make my own forges also but the only available high temp morter around here is
tenax super 32. Where do you get your satanite and price? When you edge quench
for hardening do you get a nice slick edge
where the oil hardened and scale on the rest
of the blade? What type of quenching oil do you use? Honest I'm not try to steal your ideas just curious and I'm not trying to tell you your using the wrong thing I just
like to experiment and see what somebody
does.
Darrel
triple quench usually refers to hardening
I triple anneal and triple harden and single or double temper the hardening is always to critical but the others are a successive lowering of temp. I thought maybe you were talking about me not wanting somebody being
better than me for awhile there. Shoot I
know a couple of people bettern me.....uhuh.
smile.gif
smile.gif
smile.gif


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http://www.imt.net/~goshawk The race is not always to the swift, but he who hangs loose.
Don't walk in tradition just because it feels good!!!!!

 
Goshawk,
Thanks for the questions and suggestions. No I have not tried using the koawool to help with annealing. I am going to give it a try as your thoughts are very sound. The size piece I am starting with is about 8 to 10 inches in lenght and 1/4 inch thick by 1 1/4 inch wide (sometimes shorter, sometimes longer). Yes I forge to shape and forge close to the edge but leave somewhere between 3/16 and 1/8 inch on the edge. Depends too on what kind of blade I am (or the steel tells me) to make.
For the satainte, I think is was somewhere around 20 lbs when I got it from John Husvar. He sold me smaller amounts of it and koawool than what I could buy elsewhere (enough koawool to line my forge twice and extra satanite for coating). I got his email address of Blacksmiths Junkyard.
Hold on to your seat for this next answer as I think you will be amused. I don't quench my 1084 blades in oil. I use water! When I told a friend of mine I was doing this he thought I was crazy. I have not had a blade crack, break, or any problem with the quench. But then I use satainte to clay coat it first and heat up the water to 110F - 115F before I quench.
I don't mind at all sharing information and am glad for people wanting to know how I do things so if I have missed something or am doing something stupid, hopefully someone will tell me so I can learn from it. As for scale problems, well...with the clay coating, it kind of takes care of that, just leaves clay deposits (which come off easy) and blackens the rest of the blade. I hand sand it after quenching to bright steel (which doesn't take much time) and then draw it. My draw process is 3 times at 30 minutes each letting it cool to room temp between each heat. If you have any suggestions or more questions please let me know.
Ravenclaw
 
During times when we didn't have producing
oil wells I wonder what they quenched with?
WATER maybe? It's not that wild because I've used water in sluries before to harden.
I've used 5gal of h20 with 5 lbs nacl and
a couple of glops of dawn dishwashing liquid
to harden mild steel for swords one time for
a reenactment. It was mostly for show, but
I checked them out and they held a decient edge. It probably sounds nuts but it will harden mild steel -- you know the steel that can't be hardened. If darrel reads this his eyes will definately roll and a coughing fit will ensue. what temp are you tempering
at?

goshawk

------------------
http://www.imt.net/~goshawk The race is not always to the swift, but he who hangs loose.
Don't walk in tradition just because it feels good!!!!!

 
I forgot all about that Ralph. good idea.
I used to use that with Zonealite (insulation) in fact I still have the two
pieces of wrought iron that i put on the
outside edges of the metal can before i shoved the blade between them. I use them
to warm up power hammer anvils and my Peter
wright anvil when it gets a little cool up
here. No coment on the slurry to harden mild
steel?
goshawk

------------------
http://www.imt.net/~goshawk The race is not always to the swift, but he who hangs loose.
Don't walk in tradition just because it feels good!!!!!

 
How about using water to harden 5160? It`s been my understanding that warm oil is the prefered quenching liquid but HI and GH khukuris are hardened with water and seem to hold up very well. I imagine it would greatly decrease the amount of scale and crust that has to be cleaned off the blade after quenching. Marcus
 
Marcus
I've used water to harden 5160 before on parts that I forged for machinery replacement parts, but never on a knife blade. When I did it I put it in the water
and brought it back out quickly and then
repeated not leaving there long periods.
Give it a try on a blade and let me know..
because you know I'm going to try it now.

Ed
I've heard of water and salt before, but used the dishwashing liquid because it seemed to keep the salt in suspension better. I also hit you with a question on
another thread about 3v. Did you tell me you
had some 1" round 3v? e-mail me on price.

------------------
http://www.imt.net/~goshawk The race is not always to the swift, but he who hangs loose.
Don't walk in tradition just because it feels good!!!!!

 
Sorry I haven't gotten back to you sooner. My ISP had some major problems yesterday and this morning. Anyway, I forgot a major piece of information on the quench. When I quench in water with the 1084, it is an interupted quench. 5 seconds in, 5 seconds out, then back in until it cools. I generally draw my blades between 350F and 425F. Depending on the application the blade is going to be used for. For my destruction testing, I drew the 7" blade at 400F.
For strange quench mediums, I have a friend who has quenched with liquid soap, lard, oatmeal, and combinations of the above with canola oil and car oils. He has had good luck with them also.
Thanks for the suggestion Darrel. I will have to give it a try.
Thanks all, this has been great for me. Sharing ideas and getting to learn in the process is GREAT!!!!!
Ravenclaw
 
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