Liquid tempering

Bill DeShivs said:
You can use your cast iron skillet as a temperature stabilizer. Fill it with sand.
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I've got a few junk ones lying around for that, but I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone. Cast iron will scorch at these templates and time duration without some sort of oil.
 
I'll be the one to say it.

Aaron,
You are 21 years old, posted 471 times in five months, and according to those posts:
Built your own house
Have been the head of that household for at least seven years ( since 2005 ,or longer), which would have made you 14 or younger then.
Are into quality bikes, air guns, canoes, throwing knives, .......
Drive/own a big Chevy 3500 " dually"
Have cooked over an open fire for the past eight years
Pick locks proficiently, and carry lock picks ( Illegal in GA, BTW)
Do some sort of house maintenance and property work for realtors
Have never moved away from home
Seem to post only from 3PM to midnight, and really heavily between 9 and 12
................................Well, you get the picture, so I'll stop there.

These things don't always seem to mesh. You obvious have electricity and a computer. You obviously have lots of free time.
You ask many questions about making a knife, but rarely seem to want an answer other than your own. In most every case, you wanted a fast and easy way to do the process.....not the standard and proper way. When good answers were given, and procedures explained, you still didn't want the advice.

I may be totally wrong, but you sound like a 21 year old kid who lives with his folks, plays a lot of paint-ball war, and tries to make knives out in the back yard. A few yeas back, we had a similar person on the forums, who lived in a camping trailer out behind his Mom's house. If I have this wrong, I am sorry, but to date, the info you have provided points toward this scenario.

If you really want to temper your blades simply, and truly do not have a kitchen oven in the house.... get a used toaster oven.
They cost almost nothing, and are far better than a fire with a pan of sand.

If you want to make knives, and need help learning, Shop Talk is the best place to get that help. But you need to be willing to take the help offered. As has been advised before, reading ALL the stickies will greatly help you.
 
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Thanks for writing my very short biography :) Your correct up until you said I drove a Chevy...eeeeewwwwwwww. No offense Chevy drivers.

I do however take in your advice though. I typically have my own opinion about matters when I pose questions, which is why I seam so reluctant to accept now information. But I most certainly do not reject the information given. There is a reason I asked the question in the first place...its because my own judgement and knowledge was not successful in figuring it out correctly.

Question removed, thanks stickies :)

And yes, I have plenty access to a variety of ovens, I just choose not to use them. Knives and other hard metal tools have been made thousands of years before the toaster oven. I understand that the electric ovens may work best, but I'd like to use as little power tools/appliances as necessary.
 
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My error - Dodge 3500.

I understand the neo-tribal idea of making a knife without any power tools or modern devices, but the truth is that it usually yields a lower quality knife.
That genre of knifemaking requires a good but more skill and experience to get things to come out right.

Yes, knives and tools were made for thousands of years before electric and gas ovens.....but they were tempered in special wood fired ovens and other tempering containers, not over a fire in a bucket of boiling canola oil. Or, using other methods, they were tempered by a master at the craft who knew colors and temperatures because he had learned it over a lifetime of experience.

In those days, the hardening and tempering were done by the master smith. An apprentice smith may well have to work for ten or twenty years before he ever was allowed to harden and temper a blade. He might only do menial tasks for the first several years of his learning knife/sword making.

Fast forward to today when a young lad can go on Shop Talk and make a quality blade in a week. The difference is that there are hundreds of folks here who know what works and what doesn't. They have well over a thousand combined years of experience to aid you. The other difference is better tools. The file and sandpaper still work well, but a better controlled heat source for the austenitization and temper are the keys to shortening the learning curve. Trying to re-invent tempering with a pot of boiling oil is likely to shorten your learning curve permanently.

Take your time and approach knife making as a learning task. Each part of the process is a lesson. It can't all be learned in one class. Some things, like hardening and tempering, can have a variety of methods to achieve them, but in the beginning should be done the most efficient way. Later on, you can try different things as your base of experience expands.
 
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No, I just want him to enjoy knifemaking and live to be an old man like me. That will punish him plenty.
 
On the subject of heat treating the "old way"... I was told of a test that several experienced bladesmiths (master smiths, included) took part in. The objective was to see how well a smith could gauge temperature by eye. The average variance was around 200F, usually overshooting the mark. You may be able to get fairly consistent, if you work long enough under the same conditions but trying to nail specific temperatures, let alone hold them for any length of time, is just not realistic.

You can heat steel in a campfire, forge on a rock, quench in a mud puddle and somewhere, someone will love it. That's the beauty of this craft. But, to assert that it is possible to match the quality of someone with modern equipment is either ignorant or dishonest. I know the OP isn't saying this but there are those that would.

If you want to kick it old school. Get a coal forge, something to beat on, something to beat with, suitable steel(1084 is perfect for low-tech), something to quench in and stones to finish/sharpen. Water was the most common quenchant. Using oil just lessens the possibility of ruining your blades.

Going traditional/primitive isn't the same as going "redneck" and getting inventive. Those early Japanese and European smiths took centuries to refine their methods.

Sorry for the topic sway.
 
On the other hand, you could still use simple, easy-to-work-with steels and then have a state-of-the-art HT facility take care of the burny, explodey, eye-melty parts of the process for you. Considering that time is money, I spend less on having the pro's HT a whole batch of blades than I would on fooling around with some makeshift half-vast HT set-up, and the results are consistent and of the highest quality.
 
You could also have your blanks waterjet cut... and your bevels CNC'd in. Heck, you might just get away with only having to put on the handles... or pay someone to do that, too.

Knifemaking is easy.

Just messin.:p
Rick
 
Rick Marchand said:
You could also have your blanks waterjet cut... and your bevels CNC'd in. Heck, you might just get away with only having to put on the handles... or pay someone to do that, too.
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That's part of the ten-year world domination plan. :)

I'm not knocking anyone who does their own HT. There are several right ways to HT blades. Tempering in cooking oil is not one of them.
 
He is just gathering information.

Didn't you know, all those old time smiths used hot oil and candy thermometers?
 
OK guys, lets give Aaron a break. He is just like we were when we were young.....if we can remember that far back.
 
bladsmth said:
OK guys, lets give Aaron a break. He is just like we were when we were young.....if we can remember that far back.
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Yeah but I bet the first time out, he didn't clay coat a fully finished O1 blade, heat it bright yellow and quench it in a bucket of ice water. I was all about extremes.:thumbup:
 
Canadians don't count as normal people......by definition they are somewhat crazy....its the winters that do it to 'em.
 
I was the perfect child and young man. Always listened to my elders and did what I was told. Never messed with things I shouldn't. Oh, no that was a dream!
Actually, except for a few brushes with the law as a juvenile, three years in the Marine Corps, 12 years commercial fishing in Alaska and a bunch of time in the oil industry I have lead a very sheltered life.

Most people were betting I wouldn't make 25
 
Went to a property today to verify a clear convey (and to do some some work), low and behold, there was a toaster oven. So now I have one, everyone can stop demanding that I get one.... I was looking for one anyways for kydex work. Now I have one and I got paid to haul it away :) :)

Didn't you know, all those old time smiths used hot oil and candy thermometers?
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Why...why I ask does everyone say this???????? I have yet to come across a candy thermometer that exceeds 400 degrees F. Your not suppose to run thermometers at their max temperature btw. So unless there is a rare thermometer that reads 500F+, could people please stop recommending this...its not true.
 
Lt.Col.Vortex said:
Why...why I ask does everyone say this???????? I have yet to come across a candy thermometer that exceeds 400 degrees F. Your not suppose to run thermometers at their max temperature btw. So unless there is a rare thermometer that reads 500F+, could people please stop recommending this...its not true.
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Your Google-Fu is weak young padiwan.:p You must have only been searching the glass/mercury ones.
http://www.teltru.com/p-279-deep-fry-fatcandy-thermometer-lt225r-2-inch-dial-and-8-inch-stem.aspx
http://www.amazon.com/Taylor-Deep-Fry-Candy-Thermometer-2-Dial/dp/B000VK0MSE
 
Sometimes when I joke about stuff like this it isn't so much that I am joking about someone, but often about myself in my youth and sometimes even now in my "mature" years.
 
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