Looking for help

nicosteve

nicosteve

Gold Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2025
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10
Hello, I have a video of my first heat treat. I'm wondering if there's a thread I can post this in to get feedback. I think I messed up and I want to get better. Thanks!
 
Hard to tell from a simple video, but it looked like the forge was running way too hot and the blade looked overheated. As I said color and brightness is hard to tell in a video.
 
I think you're right. It only took about 30 seconds to get to nonmagnetic. I searched everywhere and could not find how long it SHOULD take (I'm sure its somewhere i just couldn't find it). One of my knives bowed a bit but the vise got it mostly straightened out.
 
You might want to look into a simple PID with a ceramic sheathed K-Type thermocouple to monitor your forge temp. That'll be a little bit better of a sanity check than colors and magnets. If you want to get fancy, you can even look up how to control your forge temps with that same PID and thermocouple, though you'll need a few more parts and pieces. All in all, you can probably get setup for about $100 to $150, and if you have a decent forge (which it looks like you do), you should be able to hold some pretty tight temperatures.

To answer the question of how long it should take to get to non-magnetic, that really depends. How thick is your steel? What type of steel is it? (I know you said 1084, but different steels may require different times and temps, just generally speaking) How hot is your forge?
Don't forget most steels need to soak at temp for a few minutes as well, once they've reached the Currie temp (you actually want to go a little bit past this, but not too far past). If your forge is too hot, however, you'll overheat your steel and have to deal with grain growth, excess decarb, etc...

Another thing you might look into is making a heat treating baffle with a piece of pipe, which can help make sure you're evenly heating your blade more easily.

At any rate, welcome to the addiction. If you're like a lot of us, you'll soon be looking at hardness testers, heat treat ovens, buying Dr. Larrin Thomas' book on knife steel, and breaking blades to check grain structure.... hahah
 
Ill definitely get the PID. I appreciate that. I saw some people using them but I thought "damn that looks expensive) so I never looked in to it haha! I was thinking about how long i should stay in after nonmagnetic too, but I didnt stay in at all. As soon as I went non magnetic I quenched. But I will be getting that PID and hopefully do better next time! Ive got a few machines/tools on my list, but holding off for now. Dont want to get too deep too fast lol.
 
nicosteve said:
Ill definitely get the PID. I appreciate that. I saw some people using them but I thought "damn that looks expensive) so I never looked in to it haha! I was thinking about how long i should stay in after nonmagnetic too, but I didnt stay in at all. As soon as I went non magnetic I quenched. But I will be getting that PID and hopefully do better next time! Ive got a few machines/tools on my list, but holding off for now. Dont want to get too deep too fast lol.
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Cool stuff ain't cheap and cheap stuff ain't cool.
Good luck not getting in too deep. If I took what I've got in this and divided by the number of blades I've made they'd be maybe $500 or so per, that's not including labor. At my pace, I'll break even somewhere around 138 years old.

That steel looks too hot.
 
GRapp said:
Cool stuff ain't cheap and cheap stuff ain't cool.
Good luck not getting in too deep. If I took what I've got in this and divided by the number of blades I've made they'd be maybe $500 or so per, that's not including labor. At my pace, I'll break even somewhere around 138 years old.

That steel looks too hot.
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Thanks, yeah I'm looking in to PIDs now. I'm thinking of spending closer to $300 or so to get a better quality one, if you have any recommendations.
If I make money of this shit, someone got scammed. Its been a fun time but holy hell my knives look like a 4 year old with severe adhd designed them. Im sure I'll get better, but I didn't realize how much precision really goes in to these knives man. Crazy. Maybe one day I'll make one worth half of what it costs to make.
 
I don't have a recommendation for the pid. I switched to stainless and send them out. There are some threads here on the subject of controlled temp gas forge. I recall one with lots of pictures and tons of data. Good luck!
 
For just monitoring temps you don't need a PID controller, just something like this "B07P8NWH67" (do a search on Amazon since we're not allowed to post direct links here).

Also go to the auberins webpage for PID controllers in the $40 to $50 range, unless you wish WiFi then the price in >$100 or so.

A TC will also be required, something like part number TC-K-KLN from the Auberins site... just found these on Amazon's site (B0CQTSTKYP) for the Ceramic Sheath and the TC is (B0CYSRGBF2) item numbers.

edit to add: For this drill a hole thru the side of the forge to insert the ceramic sheath to just inside the forge so it's not directly in the flame. Direct flame can break the ceramic sheath. Also, be sure to use a muffler tube to put the blade inside of so it's heated indirectly rather than direct in flame for more even heating. Ideally the ceramic sheath tip would be inside the muffler tube so the temp at the blade is what's measured. Not sure how long the ceramic sheath will last since a portion will be exposed to the flame.
 
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Ken H> said:
For just monitoring temps you don't need a PID controller
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Good point. My thought was that PIDs are about the same price (for just the PID) and have the added capabilities if somebody wants to control their forge down the line, but I suppose not everybody wants to deal with the extra wiring and programming (not that there's much) that you need in order to get the PID just to monitor temps. In that case, just a basic K-Type capable thermometer/monitor is more than adequate.

I will add though, it's not a bad idea for any knifemaker who wants to do their own heat treat to get familiar with how PID controllers work and program.

Here's the link to the Tyrell video btw:
 
Drew: I agree everything you've written. The standalone thermometer almost the same price as the PID controller. Just for monitoring temp I sorta like the standalone thermometer.
 
GRapp said:
I don't have a recommendation for the pid. I switched to stainless and send them out. There are some threads here on the subject of controlled temp gas forge. I recall one with lots of pictures and tons of data. Good luck!
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Thanks !
Michael Black said:
Tyrell Knife Works on YouTube has a very thorough build video for a PID controlled forge.
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Awesome, ill check that one out for sure. I would like to do a controlled forge.
Ken H> said:
For just monitoring temps you don't need a PID controller, just something like this "B07P8NWH67" (do a search on Amazon since we're not allowed to post direct links here).

Also go to the auberins webpage for PID controllers in the $40 to $50 range, unless you wish WiFi then the price in >$100 or so.

A TC will also be required, something like part number TC-K-KLN from the Auberins site... just found these on Amazon's site (B0CQTSTKYP) for the Ceramic Sheath and the TC is (B0CYSRGBF2) item numbers.

edit to add: For this drill a hole thru the side of the forge to insert the ceramic sheath to just inside the forge so it's not directly in the flame. Direct flame can break the ceramic sheath. Also, be sure to use a muffler tube to put the blade inside of so it's heated indirectly rather than direct in flame for more even heating. Ideally the ceramic sheath tip would be inside the muffler tube so the temp at the blade is what's measured. Not sure how long the ceramic sheath will last since a portion will be exposed to the flame.
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Thanks! I haven't heard of Auberins. I was looking at Chromalox because thats what we use at work but they're too damn expensive! Lol.
Drew Riley said:
Good point. My thought was that PIDs are about the same price (for just the PID) and have the added capabilities if somebody wants to control their forge down the line, but I suppose not everybody wants to deal with the extra wiring and programming (not that there's much) that you need in order to get the PID just to monitor temps. In that case, just a basic K-Type capable thermometer/monitor is more than adequate.

I will add though, it's not a bad idea for any knifemaker who wants to do their own heat treat to get familiar with how PID controllers work and program.

Here's the link to the Tyrell video btw:
Click to expand...
Ill definitely watch that video. I appreciate it.

Thanks all for the input, yall are awesome.
 
I haven't looked into them lately, but a real heat treat oven will probably work much better. I'm not sure you can get enough control otherwise.
Doing it by eye on carbon steels requires much experience and quite a bit of luck.
Commercial heat treaters are much cheaper.
 
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