- Joined
- Aug 12, 2002
- Messages
- 2,259
OK all, first off, I ahve to declare from beginning of this thread that I am VERY much of a beginner. But I did look through threads here, and didn't seem to quite find the information I'm looking for.
First off, I do not do this as anything more than a hobby, and am still not sure I will, though I'm thinking about it. As I have not yet finished my first knife though, that's still up for grabs.
Anyways, I was following directions that a friend had written up for a way to make knives at home with supplies that most people already had, including using a file as the steel. I know this does not give the best alloy, and there are many other problems with this(and he does make beautiful, extremely good knives, so obviously he's doing something different than method that made this ugly piece of steel.
But anyways, I figured this would give me an inexpensive way ot try my hand at knife making, and more importgantly, just the great feeling of making a quality product for myself, even if it is ugly.
But enough of precursors here. After annealing the file, and shaping the blade, my next step was to heat treat and then temper. The heat treating was performed in a grill, with a hair dryer to help force air over the coals and heat them up. While I got the "knife" up to a nice glowing orange over most of the steel(I did not get the tip heated up properly, so I am going to re-heat treat this anwyays), it did not reach a point where it was no longer magnetic, which I was told was one of indications of steel reaching it's transformation point. Two questions. One, not to doubt him, but is this is a good indicator? Secondly, if I do have it nicely glowing orange but not actually hot enough to not attract a magnet, is it still going to achieve a decent heat treat? (I quench it in transmission fluid and will temper it back down in an oven). Again, I know there are other methods for these steps, just asking about this particular one. So if I do heat it up to this level again, will I still achieve a strong blade, or should I make sure I get it hot enough fo rthe magnet test?
First off, I do not do this as anything more than a hobby, and am still not sure I will, though I'm thinking about it. As I have not yet finished my first knife though, that's still up for grabs.
Anyways, I was following directions that a friend had written up for a way to make knives at home with supplies that most people already had, including using a file as the steel. I know this does not give the best alloy, and there are many other problems with this(and he does make beautiful, extremely good knives, so obviously he's doing something different than method that made this ugly piece of steel.
But anyways, I figured this would give me an inexpensive way ot try my hand at knife making, and more importgantly, just the great feeling of making a quality product for myself, even if it is ugly.
But enough of precursors here. After annealing the file, and shaping the blade, my next step was to heat treat and then temper. The heat treating was performed in a grill, with a hair dryer to help force air over the coals and heat them up. While I got the "knife" up to a nice glowing orange over most of the steel(I did not get the tip heated up properly, so I am going to re-heat treat this anwyays), it did not reach a point where it was no longer magnetic, which I was told was one of indications of steel reaching it's transformation point. Two questions. One, not to doubt him, but is this is a good indicator? Secondly, if I do have it nicely glowing orange but not actually hot enough to not attract a magnet, is it still going to achieve a decent heat treat? (I quench it in transmission fluid and will temper it back down in an oven). Again, I know there are other methods for these steps, just asking about this particular one. So if I do heat it up to this level again, will I still achieve a strong blade, or should I make sure I get it hot enough fo rthe magnet test?
