Heat Treating Guide

Hairlesstwinkie

Hairlesstwinkie

Joined
Feb 4, 2013
Messages
1,562
I have recently started to really attempt knife making. Right now my guide is the $50 Knife Shop. It's pretty good as a basic overview, but when I want to get into specific details such as heat treating, the book got really vague. I'm wondering what's a good guide for heat treat and how can you tell all the various temperatures? So far the only temp I can tell is non magnetic. When I normalize, I understand that it'll have to get to the non magnetic temp, how do I get that extra 50 degrees without overheating? When it said to cool to air temp, do I just set it somewhere to cool or just hold it with a tong? I'm working with a gas forge so temperature consistency is pretty easy to maintain, but do you actually stick a thermometer onto the forge? What do you use to heat up the oil/water? After I quinch, do I leave the steel out to cool or immediately stick it in to the tempering oven? When I temper the book said to temper for an hour and between 300-500 degrees or a range similar to that. How would I know which temp will achieve which hardness?

Sorry for so much questions, but the ambiguity of the book really left me confused... And I have quite literally warped every single knife I've worked on. So far I'm only working with old files and rail road spikes to practice.
 
At the top of ShopTalk page, there is a 'sticky' thread titled "all the good information in one place" [or very similar]. Being new to this illness, that is an excellent place to spend some time. Many questions you have will be covered in there. And then you will have a million more questions. Do some reading and ask again if there is something you don't understand. We spend years learning, testing, and discussing this stuff, but the initial leg work is up to you.

Welcome to BladeForums and ShopTalk. The main goal is to have fun as you learn.
 
I have a pyrometer in my forge to monitor temp. There are plans in the stickies to make the forge electronically controlled (PID) but that is a little bit more complex to set up, but easier to use. A kiln with ramp and soak controls are the best tool for the job.
 
When you start using decent knife steels you can go to Kevin Cashen's website, cashenblades.com and check out the "bladesmithing information" section. There you will find a lot of useful information including how to heat treat various types of knife steels and the resulting approximate hardnesses at different tempering temperatures. Of course you could always use the search function on this website. Heat treating is an ongoing discussion here.
 
As i4Marc said Cashen's site is very helpful. If you have specific questions use this search LINK
it is a LOT better than the search box at the top of the page.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top