New fighter off the bench

Stunning blade, bro. Really digging on the oak, too - crazy!!! Reminds me of long-exposure star trail photos. VERY cool.

You didn't make a second blade like this to sacrifice, perchance, did you? I'd love to see it cross-sectioned and tested through the blade, as I'd be surprised to see that it's fully through-hardened. My guess is there's a uniform skin of martensite with a center section of unhardened steel in that thick ricasso...

I can get full surface hardening on thinner (.25") cross-sections with Park's 50 and higher austenitizing temps, but certainly not at .300"! Of course, my results also result in compromised toughness,so I just gave up trying to get it 'all the way'. Did you temper the spine differently, or is it homogenous?


Fab leatherwork, too, bud. Definitely worthy of such a maker's mark! :)
 
Beautiful job. The brink quench was gutsy. Did you do an interrupted quench? You're right on getting a differential hardness with Park's. I recently got just that on some W2.

Judging by the rays in the oak burl I would guess that it was some white oak. Very nice! Nice spalting as well. I'm normally not a big fan of oak burl but this piece is beautiful.

Well done!

Gary
 
Thank you guys, I really appreciate your kind words! :)

Don't let the photos fool you though... I've never made one without flaws. I finally got it through my thick skull that you will never make a knife with zero flaws, so the goal becomes trying to make the flaws smaller and smaller. :foot:

If you guys wanna see just how high the bar has really been set, you should check out Ken's (The Virginian) thread about the AKI (Art Knife Invitational) show over in the Custom Forum..... Makers like C. Gray Taylor, Wolfe Loerchner, Larry Fuegen... :eek: Some of the very finest craftsmen in THE WORLD.

Adam- That's one of the biggest compliments I could ever get. I got a copy of the Gun Digest Book of Knives when I was about 19, and it was already over 20 years old then. Most of the makers had super buffed, mirror finish everywhere knives... But then there's D.E. Henry with his insanely precise and clean frame handled bowies and hunters. His work still stands as some of the tightest and cleanest ever. I just don't want to get the same reputation for personality. ;) LOL

Corey- Thanks man... stitching seems to be an art in and of itself. I did my first saddle stitched sheath about 12 years ago, and I'm just starting to feel "comfortable" doing it.

Sam- It might just be the photos, because I actually left the lugs on this one just a tad thicker than the last few. But I always try to get them thin. Thick lugs are usually a tell-tale sign of a guy being newer, because they get nervous to take them too thin...which IMHO makes a knife look clunky.

Matthew--- I thought you just wanted to throw rocks through my windows! :eek: :( I think what you're asking is definitely possible. I had some similar blades that didn't make it, but they didn't get as hard in the ricasso as this one did. :grumpy: Peter might let you break this one across the ricasso if you ask really nicely. ;) :D


Thanks again guys! :)
 
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You rule, bro.

I'd never throw rocks at you.

That's why I asked Lorien to. ; )

Good to see you're doing well, man! You really have taken it up a notch or two!!!!!
 
The knife looks great.
The first thing I noticed was that the medullary rays are lined up perfectly with the butt of the handle.
Looks like there might have been a bit of planning went into how to position the handle material.
 
This one is definitely worth a few pages of comments.

Nice inspiration for my breaktime too... went off the rails this past week in the shop, trying to get back on schedule.

That wood is killer! Don't you just love when you get one of those pieces that seems to make the clouds part and a chorus of angels sing? It's even better when you are able to put it on just the right blade.
 
I love and hate these threads. After working hard for the past year, learning, getting better equipment, learning more, practicing and practicing, I felt I was ready to start selling some knives. I look at what Nick has done, and feel like hiding in a corner. On the other hand, I have seen the excited look on my "customer's" faces when receiving one of my knives. and they are thrilled. Then I send them a link to a post like the "the Mystique of the Hamon," or a post like this and show them what I am trying to work towards, and they come back to me with: "People are making that stuff in their shops?!?!?!?!?!?"

Thank you Nick, and other guys like Bruce Bump, Kevin Cashen, John White, CAS, and many others, for inspiring me and showing what you do. (I actually an happy with my progress, but I have a LONG way to go!!!!!)
 
Hey Nick question for ya since I forgot to ask

Quenching this guy, was there anything you did to help avoid the "crack". Was curious do you quench straight down or do it in a trough like an old school sword. Still lookin for every trick I can to get them to survive the quench.
 
Thanks guys :)

Matt- sorry I missed that about the tempering. It's evenly tempered throughout (well, at least as evenly as I could get). The only thing drawn back more was the tang/guard shoulders. I doubt Lorien will throw rocks at me, but he probably would ride his bike off the house roof and through a shop window! ;) :D

Mark- Thanks, but planning?!?!? I just let the knife make itself! Okay, that is totally the opposite of how I do it, LMAO. :)

Corey- I quenched it point down into a small barrel of brine- big enough that once it was fully submerged I could agitate it in a slicing motion. I gritted my teeth and kept it in the water for about a 10 count, out for just a second and back in until cool enough to grab bare-handed (which is surprisingly fast!). Then I almost broke my leg getting it into the tempering oven. I think a low temp salt bath would be much smarter because the heat transfer is so fast and even.

One of the other blades seemed to live through the quench... there was no dreaded ping, no warpage, just a clean and screaming hard blade. I ran it to the tempering oven, but when I pulled it out an hour later, it had 3 very large, very nasty cracks! :eek: :grumpy:

This is one of those things you do, and then say, "Okay, goal accomplished. NOT doing that again!" :) Through hardened blades like this will be 52100, O1, or one of my preferred air hardening steels like 3V or CPM 154.
 
Nick, I always really look forward to seeing your work. Outstanding!

Trying my hand at heat treating for the first time soon. I have a 1/8 thick bar of Aldo's 1095 laying around. Planning on a brine quench. I've read so much about the difficulty of hardening 1095, so if I'm nervous about my little batch of kiridashi knives, I can imagine what you felt dunking this beauty. I'll probably have my own "not doing THAT again!" moment...lol
 
Brother Nick,
Is it cool to ask questions about your thoughts on heat treatment and thermal cycling on this one? Your experimenting has me wondering...
 
NickWheeler said:
After the first two tempers at 450F I Rc tested it and the ricasso was still 62-63 Rc. I ended up tempering at 500F to get 59/60C.
Click to expand...

Nick, I just answered some of my own questions... or, at least I realized I missed things you said earlier in this thread! Whoops. Somehow I thought you'd left the blade at RC62!!!!!

Nonetheless, I'm wondering what brought you to brine quenching, and what this taught you - you said that this was an experiment to achieve full-hardness with 1095, but I suspect there's more to this.

If I can be so bold, I'll give you a handful of postulations and you can tell me I'm off base, or if you agree.

1. The thermal cycling you did on this blade previous to quench differed from your standard grain refinement cycles, I'll wager. I can't see a brine quench allowing deeper hardening with the cross sections (in thicker areas) of this knife with the same low temp thermal cycling you do to decrease hardenability for hamon development. Is this correct? If so, what were the steps you took?

2. Did you do any sample pieces this way? What was the grain like?

3. Did you test for RC anywhere else on the blade, or just at the ricasso? I know that the likely suspect for lesser hardness would be there, but I'm interested to know if you noted any disparity at, for instance, the clip or closer to the edge where the cross section was much thinner.

4. Where there any gains or improvements that you noted in this test, or was it merely done for your edification?


Thanks for being a good sport and letting me grill you, bud - especially on a web forum. I know you're a guy that is more than willing to share your time and knowledge, but it's different when someone is actively questioning your methods or scrutinizing you. I'm sure you know I'm not doing this to single you out, but merely to learn from your experiences!
 
Okay Matt- I gotta confess... I let the neighbor kid heat treat this and I have no idea what he did to it! :eek: :foot:


:D


Seriously though... I don't mind questions like that at all. My only concern is that one of the real bladesmith gurus like Howard Clark or Kevin Cashen will see my ramblings. You know, that whole, "Leave your mouth shut and let them think you a fool, or open it and leave them with no doubt!" :foot: :o :)


I almost did leave this blade "too hard." After the first two tempering heats, it looked like it had fully hardened. Matt knows this, but for those that don't, a differentially hardened blade will show contrasting colors when tempered. The hard/tempered martensite will be a different hue than the softer pearlite spine area. Sometimes it's slight, sometimes it's black and white (not literally).

This blade had a very consistent, golden purple-ish color from tip to tail when taken out of the tempering oven.

Even though there was zero scale on the blade (taking a blade from 1440F salt and thrusting it into water is a guaranteed way to have a pristine blade) I surface ground the ricasso and Rc tested it at 62/63.

It had a slight warp, so I did the temper/clamp/shim thing at 475F. Of course I over-corrected, so I did it again at 475F. I was pretty confident that had softened it enough that I went ahead finish ground it.

It still felt awfully hard on the sharpening stones, but I set to hacking 2X4s and it was cutting like a champ. I went to the deer antler and it was zinging through it, but I noticed a couple very small chips in the edge. That's when I took it back to the Rc tester---Doh, it was still 60.5/61! I tempered 2 more times at 500F and got it to 59/59.5C.


The start of the whole mess was an order for a giant W2 camp knife that was to be fully hardened. After spending waaaaaaaay too much time on it, my 20/20 hindsight is telling me I was an idiot for thinking I could do it. The 1095 blade was thrown in the mix just cuz I had it forged to shape and it had a similar cross section.

So on to the actual questions here-

1.) Yes, I did less thermal cycles on this blade (all in salt). The initial high temp cycle was at 1700F, then 1550F, then 1425F.

2.) Yes, a handful of test coupons, as well as a couple of broken blades. I don't have the fancy lab equipment to actually examine the grain, but eyeballing the surface of the broken pieces, they look like a drill bit (if you bust a HSS drill bit it has a super smooth, silky light gray look).

3.) An accurate Rc test is limited to flat surfaces (with my equipment) so I had to stay within areas that were surface ground. I did several tests all around the ricasso, tang, and I had a tiny bit of flat area just above the ricasso. That all forces you to do some redneck testing... like running a file against the parts you can Rc test, and then running the file against the areas you can't. Of course it leaves room for error, but the idea is to see if the file bites/skates similar to the tested area, and makes the same sound. This blade felt/sounded the same all the way around.

4.) Typically a broken piece of a W1, W2, or 1095 test blade quenched in Park50 (in my shop, to my eye) looks like a broken file. A broken drill bit looks even smoother/silkier, and that's what the brine-quench test pieces looked like. Was it some kind of miraculous improvement? I don't think so, nor do I think it is/was worth the risk.

I can forge a blade from 1/4" 1084 pretty fast--- forging a blade this big, from 1-3/4" W2 roundstock or even Aldo's beefy 3/8" thick 1095 flat bar, is a lot bigger task. So by the point I'm ready to harden the blade, there's already been quite a bit of time invested. If you're just doing this stuff as a hobby, it sucks and makes your heart sink (which truly sucks). If you're doing this as a job, it means you're late with a mortgage payment. :eek: And it is definitely not worth that.


Now that I wrote a novel, I hope that cleared up the mud a bit. LMAO :foot: :)



Just for kicks, here you can see some of the carnage (NO, I did NOT water quench the 52100)

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I KNEW IT. That neighbor kid must have switched your knife for one made of lawn mower blade steel.:D



You knew exactly where I was going. Figured you would!!

Awesome response, bro. I'd REALLY like to have seen two blades thermal cycled the same way and one brine quenched and the other in fast oil - I'm thinking the lack of hardenability-reducing low temp thermal cycles is more responsible for your jump in hardness than the quench itself, but I suppose I could be wrong. How long do you let your blades soak in each normalizing cycle?

Forgot about the whole 'supported sample' thing when doing Rockwell hardness testing - my bad. It was a silly question.

Happen to remember the cert specs of this steel? Carbon content on the higher side? A possible smattering of V in the mix that may have helped pin those grain boundaries?






I'm SO jealous of your salt baths. Well, I'm jealous of a bunch of your stuff, really, including your talent and sense of design, but that's another story...

Thanks for being a good egg with this stuff. I know I'm not the only one that appreciates all the time you dedicate to posting.
 
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