Heat-treating?

[T.W. Sharps]

I just started trying to blacksmith. I forged a few knives from a leaf spring. I'm nervous about hardening and tempering them because I'm not sure of the formula for spring steel and I don't want to ruin them. I plan to use a coal forge to heat-treat. From what I learned from youtube, I was going to heat to critical, quench in warm canola oil, repeat 3 times and temper for 2 hours at 400 twice. This is the formula for 52100. I don't know if it is good for spring steel. Please help. Thank you.

 

[Patrickknives]

I suggest with an unknown steel you cut a few test pieces and try out a couple different temperatures, this way you can zero in on the performance you need.