heat treating

[Joe W]

I just finished grinding my first three knives and I want to try heat treating them myself. Two are stainless and one is tool steel. Will an acetylene torch used for plumbing get them hot enough. Can I ruin them if I try?
Thanks, Joe

 

[Belstain]

you prolly shouldn't try doing stainless yourself and the tool steel just depends on what kind it is. where did you get the steel from?

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I'm a Schizophrenic and so am I

[This message has been edited by Belstain (edited 10-01-2000).]

 

[Joe W]

A friend of mine owns a welding shop so he gave me some scraps. I know I shouldn't have used it because I don't know exactly what it is, but I didn't want to learn on steel I had to buy. I didn't expect them to turn out as good as they did, but they are far from perfect.
Joe

 

[Belstain]

yeah i know how that goes. i made my first knives out of table saw blades, but they wre the kind with carbide teeth so thy never got hard. I think you're pretty much lost as far as heat treating these blades unless you'r friend can tell yu what steel they came from.you could always do what i did and finish them up and leave em soft. at least then you get some practice making handles and you have a few nice blades to look at,but not use.

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I'm a Schizophrenic and so am I

 

[R Dockrell]

If the scraps are from a welding shop chances are that the stainless doesn't have enough carbon to harden.
You should be able to get the tool steel hot enough to reach austinizing temp (non magnetic) bu building a little forge with fireplace brick.

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Robert
Flat Land Knife Works
rdblad@telusplanet.net
http://members.tripod.com/knifeworks/index.html

 

[chuckM]

Typically stainless that is used around our shop is austentic and cannot be hardened anyway- you can check your pieces with a magnet, if it is nonmagnetic then it is austentic and as hard as it will ever be.i made a blade of this material as one of my first knives also.it actually is not a bad knife but the edge would require constant attention- this material is also more stainless than hardenable alloys The other steel you have used- if you have more you could experiment but chances are that you will spend more time than what you spent on the blade.... i have spent a lot of time trying to talk to engineering departments about alloys used in chainsaw bars, saw blades, ect.- in hopes of recycling some metal, but generally the alloys used for these things are used because they suit the task or they are cheap.the steels used for cutting tools are used because of the properties they possess and the heat treatment applied to suit the use. i only use known tool steels now with tried and proven heat treatment (which i also do) in that way i can assure that my creativity will produce as useful a tool as i can-- the results far outweigh the cost of steel.