Help needed on 2nd knife!

B

BReid126

Joined
Aug 11, 2010
Messages
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Got my 2nd knife ready for heat treat. It's 1080 1/8 in thick. Got a 4 inch blade and about 9 inches oal. I heat treated my 1st knife using a two brick forge and propane torch. It was O-1 and seemed to harden right up after quench. File skated right off. I thought 1080 would be even easier. Fired up my forge this morning and had the blade in for over 45 min. Had the area dark and it looked to be a dull orange color to me, but never got to a non-magnetic state.:confused: I figured I would try and quench anyway using veg. oil like before. File still bites so obviously not hard enough for the blade.

So experts, now what? I really like the design on this knife and want this to work. Is it still able to be salvaged? Do I just need more heat? Thanks for the help in advance.

Brian
 
Side question: Where did the steel come from? Just curious.

If it never got to non magnetic, it just plain didn't get hot enough. Make sure you warm your oil up.

You should be able to quench it again. I would give it two or three stress relieving heats to about 12-1300 degrees. I see it as a very dull red and still magnetic. Just heat and let it cool in still air. This will relieve any stresses and possible grain growth that happened during the first quench.

After that, try again with more heat. Check with your magnet regularly and remember, it has to go past non magnetic a bit to get to proper temp but also be careful to not overheat.
 
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Ditto on the non-magnetic, also check your magnet, I have has some give up, maybe overheated and other work fine all the time.
 
Thanks for the replies. It's Admiral Steel 1075/1080. I will try more heat with my coal/charcoal forge. Hopefully that will do it. It should easily be able to get over non-magnetic and thanks to everything I've read on here I have been warming my quench oil. This place is full of very helpful people and I'm thankful for it. Here are some pics after first quench and I hit it with some 100 grit to clean it up a bit. I did try for differential heat treat with furnace cement. Hope it turns out.
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You are going to temper?? the answere to that questions is yes!! twice at 400 f in the oven for 2 hours
 
+1 on more heat. I'm using the exact same stuff, including thickness, and it hardened right up. A bit past magnetic, hold it long enough to let that shade spread to the whole area I want hardened, then straight into the prewarmed quench oil. Then off to the toaster oven for a temper. I'm two for two with this steel and method, so hardly a lot of experience but I figured I'd chime in since I was using the same product.

The first two used regular veg oil, but I'm switching to canola just because it gets suggested more for this, but I haven't had any trouble.

eta: oh yeah, and +10000000 on how great folks are here and how helpful. :) I can't imagine trying to do this without the help I've found here.
 
BReid126 said:
Big yes on the temper. Thanks for the replies. What do you all think of the design?
Click to expand...

The design looks okay to me. It's hard to tell from the pics, but it looks like the furnace cement was applied really close to the tip. If you try it again, I'd leave it back from the tip a bit more. The rest of it looks fine.
 
I think I got it!:D Fired up the forge today. Did 3 stress relief heats. Got the blade past non magnetic for a bit, then quenched in warm veg. oil. File test skated right off, so it's about to go in the oven at 400 degrees for it's first 2 hour temper session.

Thanks again to everyone for the help. I'll post pics when it's all finished. :)
 
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