Knifemakers Who Heat Treat

Charlie and I heat treat CPM S30V, and CPM 3V in our shop as well as any high carbon steel blades we make. We use an Even Heat oven as well as a Paragon. Our quench plates are 2x6x18 inch aluminum and we freeze them prior to use. A dewar of liquid nitrogen is used in the cryo treatment we give both the S30V and 3V. We test all our blades with a Rockwell hardness tester after heat treating.
 
Yep been doing my own blades since the first one. I have two ovens, a very old Huppert with a 4" X 4" x 11" chamber that I redid with a new thermocouple and digital pid, works great for smaller blades. The other oven is large Sugercreek with pid controller. My tempering oven is a toaster oven that I also upgraded with thermocouple, pid controller, and extra insulation.
It will reach 550 degrees and maintain it with in a couple degrees.
 
Mike, a lot of us heavy browed Neanderthal metal pounders start heat treating (if you can call it that) our own blades from day one, but that is because if you are forging, you already have something in your shop that can get up to the proper HT temperatures and there are enough steels that are dead simple and very forgiving that you can do an marginal job with simple tools. It is a bit different for the guys using stainless (and us forgers when we start looking at some more finicky tool steels like L6 and even W2) and particularly some of the newer "super steels" A lot more ways to mess that up. I upgraded to a 24 inch Paragon as soon as i was able to afford it. I would probably buy a high temp salt pot if I could afford it, had a place to use it without burning down the entire block and wasn't terrified of the damn things. LOL
 
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