New guy needs heat

J

Jinglebob

Joined
Dec 1, 2008
Messages
2
Hello. Another new guy with questions. Bought unknown type of bar stock at my neighborhood Home Depot to practice on. I have ground out and shapped three blades and are now at a point where I need heat treatment. The question is, where can I find a service to provide this. I live in Denver and closer is better. Thanks for any info sent my way.
 
Usually you want to know what type of steel your working with. If you bought it at home depot its probably just mild steel. I think the best hardness you can get out of it is about 45.
 
There's about a 99.9% chance that steel is unsuitable for hardening. I suggest using them as a learning experience and buy real, known quality steel next time.
 
yoda4561 said:
There's about a 99.9% chance that steel is unsuitable for hardening. I suggest using them as a learning experience and buy real, known quality steel next time.
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More like 100%. Hardware store steel is mild steel with low carbon content thus non-hardening. Get some real steel and send to Peters' Heat Treat in Pennsylvania or you can use Paul Bos. Peters' will run you $16 a piece or $60 for 4 or more pieces.
 
That pretty much covers it. I use Home depot steel on my hawks but I forge weld a 1095 bit in them. That makes the outside soft and the inside good quality blade steel.
The steel you have will not harden enough to make a decent blade. You can order 1080 blade steel from Admiral Steel about as cheap as the stuff from H-D.
Welcome to the Jungle.
 
The stuff you get at Home Depot and Lowe's is good for practice, fittings, and wrap around hawks with forge welded bits, but that's about it.As everone else has said, it is better to buy your steel from a known supplier, or use things like good quality worn files or lawn mower blades if you intend to forge.
 
There were a couple of referneces above sugesting Paul Bos for heat treating services.
While his heat treating service is second to none, I believe that he only heat treats air hardeninbg steels.

-Mike-
 
Like everyone else said the steel won't harden enough to make a good knife because of the low carbon content but, when you get some good steel why not heat treat it yourself? Just heat it in a fire until non-magnetic and then quench it in used motor oil or vegetable oil that's preheated to about 125F or so. Then temper. Good luck.
 
micad said:
There were a couple of referneces above sugesting Paul Bos for heat treating services.
While his heat treating service is second to none, I believe that he only heat treats air hardeninbg steels.

-Mike-
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Copied from the brochure for clarification.

OUR HEAT TREATING SPECIFICATIONS
Materials Heat Treated: All stainless steels, air hardening tool steels,
stainless steel Damascus.
 
DustinHall said:
Like everyone else said the steel won't harden enough to make a good knife because of the low carbon content but, when you get some good steel why not heat treat it yourself? Just heat it in a fire until non-magnetic and then quench it in used motor oil or vegetable oil that's preheated to about 125F or so. Then temper. Good luck.
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That's poor and overly simplistic advice. If you want to do your own heat-treating, more power to you, but look in the stickies at the top of this forum instead of listening to this guy.
 
While not meaning to pick on Dustin, there is a little more to HT than "get red-hot and cool it off". The stickies at the top of the forums have some good info, and Kevin Cashen's (and several others) site is a wealth of info on many subjects.

Order some 1080 or 1084 and you will be able to do a fair home HT with the minimum of equipment (almost as easy as Dustin stated).

Stacy
 
Lucky Bob said:
That's poor and overly simplistic advice. If you want to do your own heat-treating, more power to you, but look in the stickies at the top of this forum instead of listening to this guy.
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Poor advice? How so? Of course it's simplistic... we're talking to a guy (a beginning knife maker) who wants to try hardening his blades so they can be knives. I have found what I said to be a good way to do so but, I guess I'm just a beginner too so maybe you shouldn't listen to me? I didn't explain every thing about heat treating and yeah there is more to it than getting it red-hot and cooling it off.
 
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