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MickeyB

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Nov 16, 2009
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I am working on my 1st compleate knife. It is a 11 inch Bowie style, full tang, out of O-1 steel. Im using grind away method and things are looking good. Took the finnish to 400 grit. My delema is the next step. Heat treating. Should I buy a small torch and start going at it until it no longer recieves a magnet? Or should I buy some coal for the forge I am not quite ready to use. Please help. (sorry if this is a redundant question)
 
O1 needs about a 10 min soak at about 1500. It will stop attracting a magnet around 1400. Simply reaching temp and quench will create a microstructure of ferrite,martensite and various carbides that will skate a file fine, but wont support an edge very well. Kinda like crunchy peanut butter - soft with hard bits. O1 needs the soak to work well.

There are some stickies at the top call working the three types of steel that answer a lot of HT questions.
 
I would suggest you ask if a nearby smith would let you come over and help you do the heat treatment. The blade should be stress relieved first, then hardened. O-1 requires a 10 minute soak at 1500F, so it is not a good choice for using a torch ( a torch is not really a good choice for any steel). The other option is to send it out to one of the HT companies. It only costs about $10.
Stacy
 
bladsmth said:
I would suggest you ask if a nearby smith would let you come over and help you do the heat treatment. The blade should be stress relieved first, then hardened. O-1 requires a 10 minute soak at 1500F, so it is not a good choice for using a torch ( a torch is not really a good choice for any steel). The other option is to send it out to one of the HT companies. It only costs about $10.
Stacy
Click to expand...

Sure just send it to me, check out my site.
Del
 
I dont believe there is anyway you will get the whole blade to 1500 with a small torch, you will need a larger torch and some bricks to hold in the heat and give you uniform heat distributions, sounds like you got a great offer to HT,

Hey delbert will you do mine??? just kidding nice of you to offer
 
Send it to Delbert, he is doing you a big favor, even if he charges you something he is not making money on this he is just trying to hepl you out.
Cheers Ron.
 
I'm in the same boat, but my knife isn't nearly as big. My blade is about 4.5" long made of 1/4" O1. Would a charcoal fire get it hot enough? and would i be able to hold it at 1500 without overheating it?
 
Thanks for the advise everyone. Thank you Mr. Ealy for the offer. However, Sending my blade to get heat treated by a profesional would not allow me to learn the heat treating process. I would rather my blade not turn out right and learn from my mistakes than lack the experience of doing this myself. I do have a coal forge that is large enough to accomidate any blade I plan to work. I guess I'll Keep reading and talking to others until I feel confident enough to try this. Thanks again.
 
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