heat treating question

J

JohnnyMayhem

Joined
Aug 6, 2006
Messages
1,360
I'm just getting back into knife making, and it seems that I'm just having a hell of a lot of trouble really getting them heat treated right.

The blades are made out of sections of leaf springs and I oil quenched them, I just need help with the last part of the heat treating.

All I have is an Oxy-Accettelene cutting torch, and nothing really specialised. (I tried doing it according to the books that I have, but I more or less get confused and just wing it.)
 
Just for a say, lets say that your using 5160 steel (there is a real good chance that it is)

What I know about HTing 5160 and 52100 (Ed would say that 52100 is 5160 with attitude) I learned from Ed Fowler.

Ed has a couple books and DVD's on the subject that have tons of good information.

In a nut shell, Ed deferentially hardens the edge , heating just 1/3rd or so and quiches in Texaco type 'A' , 3 times .

Most here are a lot more versed then I, I can just say that I am pleased with the results I get 'differentially hardening' and tempering the blade as it sounds your full-hardening the blade and drawing the spine?
 
yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing, bad thing is, either i'm just impatient or what, becuase I was reading one of the books that I don't have right off hand that was talking about when trying to do the torch stuff that the spine should turn a blue in color, and it would go down to a yellow near the edge.

The weird thing is, I didn't get it to really turn much for color anyways.

Did I just not do it long enough?
 
Johnny,
If you aren't kidding us, then you need to turn the torch off and go back and read those books again. The colors you are talking about are tempering colors, nothing to do with the quench. Quench is done at 1500F temper is done at 400F.
Stacy
 
Yes to harden you need to get the edge area red hot. Go to the point a magnet will no longer stick there, then go just a bit hotter. Quench in oil. Then you heat again to 400f. If you temper with a torch as in your description you need to get the hardened blade to clean and smooth bare metal. heat the pine with the torch and you will see the colors then. Much much much bettter to use the wifes oven at 400 for a couple hours and do it twice.
 
Oh ok. Thanks IB2v4u!

I'm just bad at explaining things, and sometimes I just mis read a whole bunch of stuff and get confused a lot becuase I leave things alone for a long while, then pick it back up. (one of those stupid things)
 
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