Heat treating with salts

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Jack Henry

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Hey guys, so lately ive been sending my knives to perters ht to harden my blades but i hate the waiting and the money it costs. Im planning on heat treating my blades with salt becuase i cant afford an oven. i know if you have never heard of using salts it sounds crazy but i know some people do it. Anyways if you use salt to ht your blades i could use some more knowlege on the process and particularly how you made your set up too ht blades with salts. Thanks in advace
 
If you can't afford an oven, you most certainly can't afford a salt set-up.
And the complexity of using salts is 10X that of an oven, when you consider the set-up, the materials used, the dedicated safe space, etc.
Get an oven.
 
Save your cash to buy or build an oven. As Karl said salts are expensive and many of the guys that use them will not help new folks out over the internet because of how dangerous they are. Kevin Cashen is arguably one of the most knowledgeable knifemakers when it comes to heat treating and metallurgy and his salts exploded on him.

Get a forge or an oven!
 
Heat treating with salt requires that you build or buy TWO "oven" type setups and arguably three if you want to HT anything other than plain carbon steel. If you want to try salt HT, call the guys at Metallurgical Solutions in Providence, RI.
 
An high temperature heat treating setup is inherently very dangerous. Any amount of moisture trapped into the - very hygroscopic - salts could cause explosions of molten salts...go figure!!
That's the main concern...then there is the necessity of periodically check and maintaining the salts neutral if you want to avoid them eating your blades.
 
Salt posts are not for:
Inexperienced makers
Low budget makers
Anyplace that is not a cinderblock building with fire suppression
Anyone who has to ask how to use them


You will still need an oven if you need salt pots.
 
Don't like the expense of Peter's? Batches of up to 20 blades for $110, even figuring in shipping you are barely over $6 per blade. Even if I had the HT oven, cryo set up and Rockwell hardness tester I couldn't do it at home that cheap. I know a maker who did the math on what it was costing him to HT his own blades. It was nearly $15 per blade.

Everything I have read about salt pots echos what has already been said. They aren't for everyone and certainly aren't for us newer makers.

Chris
 
thanks everyone. Also a big reason i dont like sending my blades off is becuase im 13 and its hard for me to get 20 blades ready at a time.
 
A 13 year old shouldn't even think about building salt pots. I suspect your parents are not aware of this idea.

You said in your profile is that you do "Very professional work". A professional would send them out if he did not have the facilities and funds to run a full size shop.


I am going to close this thread to keep it from becoming monotonous, as all the answers are going to be the same.....send them out for HT.
 
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