new to heat treating and hamons

C

clockworkfish

Joined
Dec 1, 2010
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Hey so i'm going to get a kiln pretty soon and i wanted to play with hamons, the 2 steels i have been looking at are 1080 and 1095 and from what i hear they are both water quenchable just so long as you don't go over the critical temp by much. Another thing that i should mention is that i live in an apartment and i don't want to have any sort of toxic gas or a smoke that could mark up the walls, hence why i want to work with water quenching. What i'm curious about though is since i will have a kiln with a pyrometer would it be better to work with 1095? or is it still too tricky to start with?

On the subject of hamons its better to temper the blade at a lower temp for longer right? like around 200 for 4 hours?

Lastly after you temper do you quench again in water or do you just let it air cool?
 
First, since your profile isn't filled out, I don't know if you use metric of British units, but 200C is roughly 400F.
200C is an OK tempering start point, 200F isn't going to temper the blade at all.

Tempering is a time and temperature function. Temperature is the far greater element. 200F for two weeks would not temper the same as 400F for two hours. It is the temperature you want to hit, time is not much of an issue with knives. One hour is sufficient, two hours the standard. For water quenched 1080 or 1095 knives I would use 400-425F ( 205-220C) for two hours, cool to room temperature, and repeat. If the edges are still a bit chippy, temper again at 450F/235C .

The above info is good for hamon knives or regular blades. The tempering point is chosen for the use of the blade....Chopper-lower; Slicers - higher.

I would get the HT process down pat before trying a hamon.
 
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So with a kiln its ok to use 1095? I've heard its a tricky steel to heat treat but i don't know if people just mean its hard to heat treat with just a forge and by eyeballing the color or if they mean its hard overall.
 
If you have good temperature readings, and can hold the temperature at an even point ( as a kiln does) then 1095 is an easy steel to work. The problem comes in limiting yourself to a water quench. The failure rate in water quenches is high, regardless of the steel type ( excluding tamahagane).

I am going to be "Grouchy Old Uncle Stacy" here and just say that doing knife making, and especially running a kiln and doing any type of quenching inside an apartment is dumb. There are other tenants who may be justifiably pi$$ed that you are endangering their lives and property. I am sure that your lease would be canceled on the spot if the landlord knew you were running such activities inside his property.
Either make it portable so it can be rolled outside more than 25 feet away from the building ( that is the usual fire code distance) or find a friend with a shed, shop, or detached garage who will let you do your HT there. Such a change of location will also allow you to use things like canola oil or other quenchants.

You still haven't filled out your profile, so I don't know the fire codes in your area, but a check with them should be in order.
 
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From what I've read and from my own experience, water quenching 1095 out of a kiln will more than likely end up cracking the blade. Water quenches with these steels work better when only the edge is above critical temp and that's hard to control or judge using a kiln.

I think Stacy's advice is well heeded.
 
Another question- how will you be shaping your blades? Stacy and Stuart say, and I agree, that water quenching from a kiln, especially when just learning, will break blades left and right. It would get old draw filing all of those blades only to break them, a grinder would save you some time and heartache- but that's not a good idea in an apartment either. A separate space sounds necessary- otherwise at least change some plans about heat treating.
 
i am able to do grinding in my appartment just fine and have had no complaints yet, as far as the heat treating goes i wanted to use water so i wouldnt make a horrible mess. The last batch of knives i have been working on was profiled with a waterjet cutter, but now i am looking into using a jewlers saw (or hack saw) and a drill to cut them out. I have also forged one and just used an angle grinder for some others. The ones before the water jet all came out kind of bad because i didnt know about proper edge geometry.

Now this might just another bad idea but do you think it would help if i did the heat treating out of my bathroom? There would be immediate access to water (in case of fires) also most of the bathroom is tiled which i would assume is a bit more firesafe than other things.

Sorry if these are just really really bad ideas but id rather ask and find that its not a good idea than do it and end up wrecking my place.
 
No harm in asking. I know if I had to go live in apartment again I'd probably start trying to make knives somehow to keep from going nuts. I do think that I'd send them out for HT if I did though. A hacksaw will work a LOT better than a jeweler's saw for profiling.

Water quenching for hamons, especially with a kiln, especially as a newbie (no offense), I must stress again, will probably break most of your blades. It feels worse than it sounds. It sucks when only 25% of your blades crack. Light oil for hamons with a kiln, or at least moving to heating the edge with a small OA torch for water quenching, may help you maintain your sanity.

I'm just trying to envision how I'd HT in an apartment. A small kiln, maybe- it would have to probably be 110V and low amperage, but even so I'd not try to use water to quench in. Canola, maybe. It would be a fairly ordinary kitchen smell for the most part, especially if you quenched under an oven hood. Flare-up could be a liability- big blades would be risky, as indeed it would be anyway. I'd be less concerned with easy access to water than with having an extinguisher within arm's reach. A combustible floor would be a BIG no no in any area you may try to HT in.

Do you know anyone in the area that could lend you a small corner of their shop, or could you make a sidewalk-type HT rig for outdoors during the day? If you had a deck or porch or something, maybe you could work out there...

I can't really advise any of the above- I have heard of things as crazy as people blacksmithing on 14th floor high rise balconies, though.
 
The short answer is that What people CAN do...and what they SHOULD do are rarely the same thing!
Can you do HT in a bathroom - yes.
Should you do HT in a bathroom - Definitely NO!

As the spouse of a lawyer, I will also point out that loosing your lease is not the worst that can happen. If anything goes wrong, you will quite likely be charged with criminal neglect, willful endangerment, or (God forbid) manslaughter. You could end up making flat metal objects for a good while.

Final comments, and I will let this one go:
You are a new maker, and while you are enthusiastic, you are inexperienced. You DON'T KNOW what could happen, because you haven't done it enough yet. Learning to HT knives takes time. There will be failures, and accidents. Time will tell you how to avoid both, but for now, unless you can hook up with a local smith who will teach you the ropes of HT ( in a proper shop), you will make these mistakes. Done in an apartment, some accidents could be minor, some could be serious.
Also, realize that if there is a tragic fire, the Chicago City Council may enact an ordinance banning any and all knife making in Chicago for safety reasons. Such bans after a fire and/or other tragedy are not uncommon. Chicago has had bad fire problems in the past ( The Great Chicago Fire!), and I would be willing to bet they have a serious law against what you are planning already on the books. You could also get all knife makers labeled as crazy people who flaunt the laws and endanger public safety. This could affect many other knife makers besides yourself.
Either send it out for HT or find a proper place to do it.
 
sounds good can't wait to get my own shop now, so i dont have to deal with stuff like that. Thank you guys so much for your help! I could have been doing some really dumb things there and hopefully this will help out some other people as well!
 
Send them to Peters heat treat service, they will clay coat for hamon.

Best of luck with everything!
 
When i lived in apartments I sent my blades in batches out for HT... except in the last one, since I had an Evenheat, I would harden AIR-HARDENING blades on the kitchen island. I don't have a service that will do small numbers of blades for HT and shipping them south of the border for this process is problematic.

My point in this roundabout way... my HT oven is the most expensive piece of equipment I own and I could HT batches of blades for years for the cost of the oven, unfortunately I moved a bunch of times and got behind on orders and had to do a few in the kitchen. It can be done safely, but it is not cost effective and might not be legal.

HOuses are now cheaper than apartments! Now I heat treat in the basement of the house, surrounded by concrete, oil quench outside though!
 
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