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Scotch cabinet.
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My Pet Peeve _ Heat Treat is everything!
- Thread starter David Metzger
- Start date
Scotch cabinet.
Tai Goo
BANNED
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Beyond the facts... think of it as baby step #2.
The truth and the future rest beyond the facts,... and "the answer is blowing in the wind".
Try thinking of the facts as the ground. Now all you have to do is stand up and walk,... then you can fly!
(and no, this isn't a new heat treating cult)
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yes but my hardened round bar will hold an edge better, pry better and hammer better then an unhardened round bar. what is a knife if it cant do knife things? come on!
yes there are other ways to look at things but as someone who makes knives i know that heat treatment is the first thing you need to get down how good your work looks will come with time. or like some people do. they send there knives out so they dont appretiate the process as much as someone like me who does there own heat treating.
now when you are talking about a manufactured knife it is even more so how good the heat treat is because take two of the same knives from the same manufacturere and only heat treat one and not the other give them to two different guys and the guy with the unhardened blade will never buy from that manufacturere again! tell me i am wrong.
to someone how buys knives yes looks are first but if that knife does not perform, that someone will think much differently about a knife that looks that way again.
HEAT TREATING IS THE FIRST AND FORMOST IMPORTANT PART OF KNIVES.
some of the greates quotes i have ever read!!!!!!
I think you meant: when people stop saying "I heated it to nonmagnetic and then quenched in canola oil."
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Chad2, blades were made from copper (and stone, further back) at one time, and because of form they had function. They were later alloyed, and then iron was discovered, and of course now steel. My point is that heat treatment was not a factor in the beginning, and form created a function, heat treatment/materials later expanded and improved that function.
LOL
I think there might be a couple of you guys that needs to get a grip on "reality".
I'll tell you all about reality... I've actually been there and made it back in one piece.
... not many people can say that.
So have I. It wasn't the Nam, but it was a dangerous job, and not all doing it survived. Not even in my small town. What does that have to do with making knives?
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I appreciate HT above all other aspects of knifemaking, it is the most important part to me. I don't do my own HT because I don't have the proper equipment, cannot afford to buy it, nor have the facilities to use it. A torch, oil and a toaster oven is not proper equipment to me. So in the meantime, I send it to someone who; 1. Knows exactly what they are doing & 2. Has the proper(and better) equipment and methods readily at their disposal.
yeah back in the day they used to write in stone and rube mercury on your skin if you had a sickness but now we have computers to write and actual medicine that works!
so lets put a slab of rock and your copper chisel and tell you to write a book. no your going to say #$%^ off i will write it with my computer.
or if you get lock jaw from rust and go to the hospital and they pull out a wooden wedge and tell you they need to smash it into your mouth to get it open and rube mercury on your skin because it will pull the disease out of your body in the blisters that form and they pop them. you will never go back to that hospital again
come on there is a reason for technology heat treating is an example of that
like i have said before look at scandi grind blades, they work and people still buy them
james terrio
Sharpest Knife in the Light Socket
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There are a lot of great quotes in this thread, but Will has put it all together very nicely. :thumbup:
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It was not my intention to start an argument, simply to point out that heat treatment while indeed important and beneficial, is not "everything!!!!!" that makes up a knife. Your example of a scandi ground annealed blade is true in that it will not last long at it's intended task, but I would say it would work well enough to cut soft things or stab someone with. Many battles were fought with primitive blades, those people killed are no less dead because it wasn't a 62 HRC blade that did it. Again, I am not even beginning to state that heat treatment isn't a huge and indeed integral part of a good blade, especially in modern times, just that does not define a blade.
i agree very much so. i do not believe that the heat treat is everything. but like i have said i do believe it is the biggest part of a knife (NOW DAYS). i say now days because people are becoming more inlightened on heat treating so more people want the best although they may have no idea what that means but they still want it, and some of them may test there blades. so yes again i believe that the heat treat is the most important part of knife making NOW DAYS.
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I agree with the caveat that the heat treatment is equally as important as form and execution. One simply isn't useful without the other, as it pertains to a blade. I think Tai's round bar example is right on the money there.
But without too much digression, as to the original post; I can certainly understand becoming tired of the adage "proper heat treatment", however I think it serves an important purpose to reiterate important ideas. It has already been said several times in this thread, that an improperly heat treated blade is at best not as good as it could be, and at worst a dangerous liability. I think the word "proper" is the trouble, as people have differing ideas of what that is, even with the same particular task in mind; and frankly I don't think everyone will ever agree on that, it's borderline theology. "Proper" also comes with the assumption that the listener/reader/consumer adds "for the intended task it was designed for", and many people who are buyers just have to trust the maker in that.
An example that comes to mind is the "What to do with 440C?" thread. I think we've all used cheap poorly made knives made with 440 and found them to be pretty bad, it's caused a bad opinion of 440C which was discussed in the thread. But the steel itself when given the heat treat necessary for the task, was reported to actually be a very good steel.
If a blade serves its intended purpose without breaking, it holds an edge for an acceptable amount of time for the task at hand, I would personally consider that adequately heat treated -- perhaps another way to avoid the word "properly", while remaining general enough that most can accept that.
But without too much digression, as to the original post; I can certainly understand becoming tired of the adage "proper heat treatment", however I think it serves an important purpose to reiterate important ideas. It has already been said several times in this thread, that an improperly heat treated blade is at best not as good as it could be, and at worst a dangerous liability. I think the word "proper" is the trouble, as people have differing ideas of what that is, even with the same particular task in mind; and frankly I don't think everyone will ever agree on that, it's borderline theology. "Proper" also comes with the assumption that the listener/reader/consumer adds "for the intended task it was designed for", and many people who are buyers just have to trust the maker in that.
An example that comes to mind is the "What to do with 440C?" thread. I think we've all used cheap poorly made knives made with 440 and found them to be pretty bad, it's caused a bad opinion of 440C which was discussed in the thread. But the steel itself when given the heat treat necessary for the task, was reported to actually be a very good steel.
If a blade serves its intended purpose without breaking, it holds an edge for an acceptable amount of time for the task at hand, I would personally consider that adequately heat treated -- perhaps another way to avoid the word "properly", while remaining general enough that most can accept that.
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dam it Tai i cant get behind most of your wordings but this might be a keeper
BTW the first true tool i bought was my HT kiln (had a delta 1x42 grinder and borworred drill press time to make holes ) so you can guess where i put HT in my list of gettign thinbgs right
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this is my personal opinion and experience:
as for steel itself, the technique use to manufacturing the steel in the steel mill is far more important than the later HT. like VAR, ESR, powder metallury and the forging technique does to the ingots. maybe your guys never have to worry about this part nor pay any attention to it. but for same type of steel, the better quality, the better potential the heat treatment can bring up. heat treatment is like train your dog. you can train your Chihuahua to be very aggressive and might chase off a 2 month scared rottweiler puppet. but she just can't match the 3 month one.
as for the knife, the design and edge geometry give more credits to the proformance than the heat treat would do. i have seen double refined s5 blade got ownt by some 10 dollor mass producted shitty damacus. the $10 damacus blade has a better geometry and thicker blade while the s5 is kind of too thin. i was a little drunk and made over confident about the better heat treated s5. i did an over head edge to edge chop...and result is $10 cheap blade triumphs on this purpose. it was pretty embrassing lol, 5mins ago i was bragging about how important is quality of steel and superior heat treatment. man if i wasn't drunk i would not have done that shit.
finally when you have same designed knives made of same steel, then the better heat treat will do his part.
knife/swords can be a tool, an art, a toy...anything its all depends on how we indentify it. all types of knife exist for a reason. Sometimes i see guys push too hard on knife making, trying to bring up a "perfection". well lets say that is dangerous, since perfection belongs only to God himself, and you get too close to it, He may send a thunder bolt and take you with him.
as for steel itself, the technique use to manufacturing the steel in the steel mill is far more important than the later HT. like VAR, ESR, powder metallury and the forging technique does to the ingots. maybe your guys never have to worry about this part nor pay any attention to it. but for same type of steel, the better quality, the better potential the heat treatment can bring up. heat treatment is like train your dog. you can train your Chihuahua to be very aggressive and might chase off a 2 month scared rottweiler puppet. but she just can't match the 3 month one.
as for the knife, the design and edge geometry give more credits to the proformance than the heat treat would do. i have seen double refined s5 blade got ownt by some 10 dollor mass producted shitty damacus. the $10 damacus blade has a better geometry and thicker blade while the s5 is kind of too thin. i was a little drunk and made over confident about the better heat treated s5. i did an over head edge to edge chop...and result is $10 cheap blade triumphs on this purpose. it was pretty embrassing lol, 5mins ago i was bragging about how important is quality of steel and superior heat treatment. man if i wasn't drunk i would not have done that shit.
finally when you have same designed knives made of same steel, then the better heat treat will do his part.
knife/swords can be a tool, an art, a toy...anything its all depends on how we indentify it. all types of knife exist for a reason. Sometimes i see guys push too hard on knife making, trying to bring up a "perfection". well lets say that is dangerous, since perfection belongs only to God himself, and you get too close to it, He may send a thunder bolt and take you with him.
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There's a phenomenon I see all the time teaching welding and forging- some people just never get it, and some people seem like they're born doing it. I submit that there's a bit of that in heat treating. If you have "a feel for the steel" you can do things that don't make sense, like forge welding at low temps, heat treating simple steels with a torch, or making gorgeous welds with a scratch start tig kit on a buzz box.
The people that don't "get it" had better send their blades out...though often they're not the ones who can admit that they don't know squat.
Don't get me wrong, it's all about testing and being realistic about what works and what doesn't, and letting go of opinions that don't hold water, and for me it's all about learning today's amazing fact about metallurgy (Thanks to so many on this forum) and upgrading equipment and techniques...but the "don't try this at home, kids" attitude that implies that a knife is no damn good if it wasn't sent to so and so can take the fun and challenge out of this endeavor.
Has anyone watched Kyle Royer's video on making his JS test knife? THAT guy has the feel for steel, and the results bear it out.
I don't know any commercial HT shops that will differentially treat your 5160 with a rosebud, but no one can say he doesn't make it work.
And really- most of what we do with our knives is like a Hawaii vacation for the steel compared to how it's used in industry.
Andy G.
The people that don't "get it" had better send their blades out...though often they're not the ones who can admit that they don't know squat.
Don't get me wrong, it's all about testing and being realistic about what works and what doesn't, and letting go of opinions that don't hold water, and for me it's all about learning today's amazing fact about metallurgy (Thanks to so many on this forum) and upgrading equipment and techniques...but the "don't try this at home, kids" attitude that implies that a knife is no damn good if it wasn't sent to so and so can take the fun and challenge out of this endeavor.
Has anyone watched Kyle Royer's video on making his JS test knife? THAT guy has the feel for steel, and the results bear it out.
I don't know any commercial HT shops that will differentially treat your 5160 with a rosebud, but no one can say he doesn't make it work.
And really- most of what we do with our knives is like a Hawaii vacation for the steel compared to how it's used in industry.
Andy G.