Heat treating small blades

[David Stifle]

Okay, I have the whole heat treating normal size fixed blades thing down tight, but how does Ht'ing small, folder to pocket knife sized blades work? I get it up to tempering, then it gets fuzzy. Do I use the same temps I would use if it were a larger blade? Do I still go for 2 one hour cycles? Doesn't seem as if it would be necessary, but...

 

[elementfe]

In a word, yes.
Think of it this way- the part of the knife that you're most interested in getting the exact right heat treatment on, the cutting edge, isn't any different on most big knives than on a small knife. It's still somewhere between 5 and 20 thousandths thick, and will respond the same way.
Before I got a proper HT oven, though, I did struggle with grain growth due to overheating the tips of smaller knives, when working with my forge, simply because of the physics of it all....but I don't think that's what you're talking about.