Knife Going to Afghanistan

[Tyronethepro]

One of my friends from my childhood who I grew up with is now officially a United States Marine. He leaves for 2 months for more training for his MOS and then he says he should be getting deployed in Afghanistan. I felt I owed him for doing this for our country so I'll be sending with him one of my customs pounded (some of the deeper marks I wasn't able to get out) from 1/8" 5160 Steel in a flat grind 9" Overall 1 3/4" wide at its widest. Hardened by heating the edge cherry red with a torch and quenched in a mixture of used Motor Oil and Vegetable Oil. It is satin finished with Marvel Oil and Rubbing Compound by hand. The handle is wrapped with paracord in a flat Kydex Sheath that has 2 MOLLE/ALICE clips for his gear and a belt loop that fits up to a 2" belt with a QR buckle. And finally he will get a Desert Tan Monkey Fist. I hope he enjoys it as much as I liked making it. He had told me if I made him a blade he wanted a real hard user he can abuse, so I tried to give him something not incredibly ugly but with enough grit he won't be afraid to use it.

EDIT: Going to anneal and re-treat the blade as The Geek has told me.

When I get my operation running better I hope to send out more blades to Troops stationed overseas.
Thanks for Looking
~Tyrone

 

[thegeek574]

This is not meant to poop on your parade, and I appreciate your spirit, but Heating the edge of 5160 to cherry red and then quenching will not make it anywhere close to properly heat treated. you have to soak 5160 at 1500 degrees for about 5 minutes before you have all of the carbides and such dissolved. Personally, if I am sending a knife with a trooper to Afghanistan, then I want it to preform optimally and not be less than it could be. If you headed over to Shoptalk, and asked, then I am sure that there is a smith in your area that would be happy to help with the HT.

Once again, I don't want to poop on your parade, but this just isn't going to work to it's full potential.

 

[Tyronethepro]

Edit: double Post.

 

[Tyronethepro]

Thank you for the info Geek, I will Anneal it then re-treat it, hopefully It will be optimum after taking your advice. You haven't pooped on my parade, but quite the contrary, you have actually made my day by telling me what I could do to improve my work.