If you only quench the edge with O1, do you still need to temper in an oven ?

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Nov 24, 1999
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I bought a bar of O1 and all the other stuff I need to make a folder, and its my goal to make a useable liner lock by the end of this week (spring break). I've messed around with patterns and made a few test ones from junk stuff, and I think I've got it all together now.
Trouble is I have to learn to heat treat at the same time :D
I'll have to do it with a propane torch. I can make up a mini forge pretty easily if I need to do that to get it up to temp. Then for quenching I'm pretty much limited to water, or used motor oil (probably 10W30), unless theres something better I can buy cheap and find easily. What would be best?
For tempering, I'm not sure what to do. I could probably use the oven, but I'd like to avoid that. If I quench the edge ( lower half of the blade in this case, to include the locking face on the tang) and then let the heat from the spine creep back to the edge, until its a straw color, and quench it again would that work good enough?
For now, these are just small 2"-3" folder blades so it won't matter if they're a little hard and not extremely tough.
Thanks for any help.
 
what I would do is go get yourself some vegetable oil or canola oil, like for cooking and heat it up untill you can just barely stand the temp of the oil on your fingers if you dip in. ( thats if you don`t have a thermometer, if you do the temp is 135F) then take your torch and slowly heat the blade till a magnet doesn`t stick, then heat just a bit more then quench in your veggy oil at the 135F, once the color in the steel is gone you can drop the blade in the oil. once the oil is cool enough to grab the blade out with your bare fingers then wipe off real good, sand the scale off and put in the oven at 350F for an hour, let cool to room temp, then retemper at 350F again for an hour, let cool to room temp and there you are.
If you don`t temper the edge will be too hard and can chip with use or even worse crack on it`s own from the stresses of heat treat! thats never happened to me but I`ve heard of that happening!
Enjoy and if you have more questions feel free to ask!
 
Little Hen does it the same as I but grind the scale off and sand it to about 400 so I can see the straw color when tempered for an hour. The instructions are on the package for heat-treat including a rockwell scale. For 58-60 I think it says 400 deg. You will see when you get the steel.
An old blacksmith method of tempering is to heat a thick bar to red hot and place the spine of the freshly hardened blade on the bar and watch the color move to the edge. When the edge is straw colored quickly quench in water. This will make the spine soft and spring temper in the center and still have a hard tough edge.
 
I'll see what I can do. I think I'll try the blacksmith way first, if I get to messing with my moms oven too much she might try and make me learn to cook ;)
 
Matt, I make all of my folder blades out of 01, and I've used the "old blacksmith" way a couple of times with good results. However, if you get the blade too hot when tempering it this way, you will need to go through the entire heat treating process again.

When using the "old blacksmith" way, I heat up a railroad spike until it's almost a welding temp. Then I pull it out of the forge and place it on the anvil. The spike will cool and go back to its normal color in a short time, but there is still plenty of heat in it. Infact, the spike is usually back to its normal color before I start seeing the color changing in the blade. Be carefull because once the color starts changing in the blade, it can get away from you before you know it.

I believe you are going to have trouble getting a piece of steel hot enough with a torch to temper it in the way mentioned above. I would say that it would be better for you to use the oven. If you clean your blade good with Windex, you will get all of the oil off of it before putting it in the oven. I temper my blades on a cookie sheet at 350 for 1 hour. I let the blade cool to room temp, and put it back in for another hour at 350.

Hope this helps. -chris
 
What is 01 steel? I am green as grass. I want to make a blade out of ATS-34. Can I harden and temper the finished blade in the manner described above? My knife will not be a folder. Should I temper it after hardening?

Thanks; rlinger
 
01 is a high carbon steel that is easy to heat treat
Matt, get yourself a cheap toaster oven the little ones
that you can get for about 20 dollars cut a small hole
in the top and get a candy thermometer and put it down in the hole
some of the ovens can run higher or lower than the temp you set it
at.
;)Map gas works good,You can pick one up a Lowe's for about 30 dollars
 
Sort of off topic, but...

I used to h/t 1095 blades with an oxy acetylene torch, and had fairly good results with differential tempering. Since I no longer have access to the torch, does anyone know a 'cheap' torch (MAPP, Propane?) that's hot enough to h/t the plain high carbon steels?

An oxy rig is more than I'd need for anything else, and I'll have to stand on one foot if I put anything else in my garage that takes floor space...

Thanks for any info,
Larry
 
Thanks guys
I got one blade treated, the folder is still in progress. Got called to work and a bunch of other stuff came up. Anyway the blade seemed to harden pretty well, I tried to draw it back with a torch the first time and got it too soft, a file wouldn't quite skate off the edge. So I re did it and tempered it in the oven. I would have tried tempering it with a big block of scrap steel, but it seemed like getting it hot enough (the scrap steel) with the torch and grinding the scale off the blade and everything was a lot to do before tempering. I wanted to get the first one done quick without any stress cracks. I'll play around with it some more now that one turned out.
For anyone interested, I just used a plumbing type torch with LP (propane). I set the blade on its spine on a concrete block, and heated from the tip with the torch turned up all the way. You can buy the propane cylinders from the hardware store for about $2. The torch head will cost more depending on what kind you get. You definitely need to look into something to hold the heat in (mini forge, one brick forge etc.) if you plan on any blades much over 3"-4".
 
Hey Larry1096

I make my knives by edge quenching 1095 that I heat with a small Bernzomatic two gas torch that can use either propane or mapp gas on one side and bottles of atmospheric oxygen on the other side. It has a little plastic holder for the bottles and it sits on a table top. I paid about 40 dollars for it in a walmart. The MAPP gas cylinders or the propane cyl. last a long time (50-60 blades worth), but the oxygen doesn't last very long (4-5 blades worth). Oxygen cylinders I order from the local hardware store at $8.47 ea. It will only do a blade up to about 4-5 inches in lenght though, because the flame is pretty small. You might want to try one of these for heat treating smaller blades.

Chuck
 
For folks looking for a cheap torch suggestion that is very effective, you might try the weed burning torch from Harbor Freight. Its a 2 1/2 foot long wand with a lever activated air venturi. It hooks up to a 20 lb grill tank and costs about 20 bucks. When you squeeze that lever, it throws a 8" diameter 3' long flame that is VERYHOT.
I've been using it for a numger of years now. You can use the regular hard fire brick (available at any building supply place). I put two on edge, two across the top,two underneath and one in back to make a litle oven. Pop the blade in there and let fly with the torch. It'll bring a blade up to non-magnetic in a short amount of time.
Harbor freight is on line at www.harborfreight.com
Good luck,
Ed
 
Thanks for the tips on torches. That weed torch sounds a little scary, or am I not picturing it right?

Larry
 
I just got one of those torches from Harbor Freight. I fired that mother up this afternoon and it was unbelievably cool. When you crank it up good it sounds like a jet engine. It was so neat I started laughing out loud. I just bought some soft firebrick and some kaowool and some itc-100 yesterday should get it sometime next week, hopefully I will have some forges going by next week. YES!!!!
 
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