Newbie Knife maker

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metacarpels

Joined
Jan 16, 2001
Messages
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Ok all, i havent posted in a long time but ive decided to begin making my first knife, and ive got questions. First of all, Heat treating and tempering. I have a charcoal grill and an oven to do this, can someone tell me exactly how to go about this process? im making it out of simple 1095 carbon steel. I need to know what to look for when quenching, how long to put it in the oven for tempering, etc. Also, epoxy for the handle. Im going to be glueing my handles on without rivets (Similar to how anza knives are made). What epoxy should i use? i was looking at Devcon 2 ton epoxy... im glueing canvas or linen micarta. Anyone have any pointers? id really appreciate the time to respond. thanks
 
I may not be the best person to give you advice on this but no one else has chimed in yet. It's probably okay to harden your steel in a charcoal grill. You'll only need a temperature of about 1500 degrees which I'm sure your grill can reach. Heat it until it is non-magnetic, or full red. Quench it in preheated water or oil. When you quench it, plunge it directly into the middle of the bath and don't move it until it stops boilling. Water should be preheated to about too hot to touch (I'm sure someone will argue with me on this, but I don't advocate water hardening, anyway). Oil should be about the same. I use automatic transmission fluid to quench (I've read that the best is a 1:1 mixture of transmission fluid and diesel fuel).
Tempering a carbon steel like 1095 ought to take place as soon as it changes color (as opposed to taking an hour or two like air hardening steels), but I like to hold it for around an hour just to be sure. Your oven will do fine - take the steel to a straw yellow.
Your choice of epoxy sounds good (I think it's what I use). Most epoxies will do fine, as long as you don't use any of the quick-dry ones. If it takes less than an hour to set, you probably don't want to use it.
Good luck - let's see some pictures when you're done.

- Chris
 
Thanks so much for the reply hes! much appreciated. Just a small point of clarification, i quench it and then when its done boiling take it out and put it directly into the oven at 400 degrees, at at that temperature it will come to a straw yellow in the oven? did i hear you correctly? and then once it reaches that point, i take it out and let it air cool? thanks so much... sorry for the additional questions
 
1095 is difficult for the beginner, but it will give you practice. I would stay away from a water quench if it were me. Since you are a beginner, I would recommend you find a smith in your area to help you, but I realize that isn't always possible. If you do it yourself, Use some kind of oil. whether it be tranny fluid or veg oil. Best thing that I can tell you is to get it from the fire to quench as fast as you can because you have a small window to work with 1095.
 
With carbon steels, you can let the steel cool as much as you want before tempering. Only air hardening steels are picky regarding this. I would actually recomend letting it sit for a little while before putting it in the oven.
Once it has reached its proper temper, you can remove it from the oven and let it air cool. I like to temper carbon steel blades twice just to be sure. I'd heat it to 400 or 450 degrees (in accordance with the tempering scale for w-2 in David Boye's "Step-by-step knifemaking...", which I strongly recomend).
As I mentioned before, heat treating is not my forte. I work almost exclusively in stainless steels, now, which I have professionally heat treated (great idea if you don't have HT equiment). I used to use a lot of carbon steel, though, and it worked fine.
And don't worry about asking too many questions. A lot of the people here have been making knives for longer than I've been alive so I'm happy I get to answer some questions sometimes ;)

- Chris
 
I appreciate the replies. I think ill get some automatic transmission fluid to quench it. Do i preheat the transmission fluid? Also, will the blade turn to the straw color while in the oven at 400 degrees? and when it does, i pull it out to let it air cool at that point? thanks

I was thinking about having it professionally heat treated, but then i realized i like the idea of doing it with what i have available. My great grandfather lived on a remote farm and would forge and heat treat his own tools including knives and i admire that, and like doing it in a similar way. im somewhat of an old sentimental sap though so.... Thanks so much for the further assistance.
 
I've never preheated my oil bath, but I'm told its important. Because an oil quench is inherantly more stable than a water quench, I don't think preheating the oil is quite as important as preheating the water. I'm not exactly sure, though.
There is deffinately something to be said for doing your own heat treating - and for carbon steels it's more necessary, as there are fewer places that will do it for you.
The steel will change color as it heats. Depending on the heat it's at, it will turn a different color. The progression is as follows: silver gray, faint straw, medium straw, dark straw, light vermillion, full vermillion, peacock, even blue, blue gray (Boye, p121). For most knives, medium to dark straw is optimal.

- Chris
 
wow thanks so much all. Right now ive got the shape of the blade done and am working on the shape of the handle (using a drill with a sanding drum) there in my ghetto shop with few tools. Then im going to profile it with my little belt sander. any tips on profiling the blade? thanks.
 
Metacarpels, it is important to preheat your quench oil, im really not sure why but enough awesome smiths have told me to do it so i do it,also..i use mainly 01, and i preheat my tempering oven to 400 and after quenching i let it cool to where i can handle it with my hand[still warm] then put it in for two hours,let cool repeat..you can do a search on here for heat treating carbon steels..i know 1095 has been brought up before..good luck, and be sure to post pics!

P.S. youre hooked..no hope for you now
 
Just a few clarifications.

You may need a hair dryer or something to get sufficient heat from charcoal, and you'll use a lot of charcoal.

You need to heat your steel to critical temp - and not beyond it - and hold it there for a beat, five to ten seconds. You can measure critical temp by testing whether it's magnetic. When it's critical it will become non-magnetic. You must then maintain that temp for a short time before quenching. Do not overheat! You can redo a failed HT if it doesn't harden but you can't go back from overheated steel.

Preheat your quench to 120 degrees F. I use vegetable oil, which is probably the poorest quench available, but it works okay. I get a little nervous when my quench flames all over the place so got away from diesel etc rather quickly.

Because the steel will be discolored when you take it out of the quench, and because you really do not want to let it cool completely before you temper while you grind off the scale, you need to calibrate your oven with an oven thermometer so that you know the temp of the area in your oven where you'll be laying your blade. The interior of most ovens varies quite a bit from place to place, and the temp selector should be considered no more than a guide. Use a thermometer. When your blade has cooled enough that you can handle it with bare hands, into the oven.

400 is probably a reasonable temp to temper; but I don't use 1095 so I don't really know, do I?. I do two two hour cycles allowing the blade to come to room temp between them.

If you think about it, heat treating is really the one part of the whole process that can best be called "knife making." Without it, or done wrong, you have nothing but a decorative metal object with a knife shape. This is why the best makers are so stringent about their HT processes, and work so carefully to get it down right.

All this being said, almost everyone here has more experience heat treating than I have and most have tested their processes excessively. I hope someone else will come along with better guidance! ;)
 
hey all this is great.. thanks so much for the great info here. and yes, i am hooked. ive already drawn up my next design. Im hopin that the heat treat goes ok, as i do want this knife functional. Im excited to see how it turns out and if it flops, ive got a good beater for when i go into the field and its on to the next....
 
ddavelarsen, Your post sounds good, but if you do not use 1095, what kind of metal do you use doing it the way you talk about? I am about to take the plunge and make knifes, instead of buying old knifes and cleaning the up for sale.
 
Welcome hogcat. I use O1 but the general principals described would would for any carbon steel. It's the tempering temp I wouldn't swear to. ;)
 
well, i got the shape of the blade put together and im working on the handle. whats the best way to get the contours for the fingers on the bottom of the handle? ive been using a vise and a barrel sander attached to my electric drill and it works ok. Also, im gettin ready to profile the blade in a flat grind format that goes about three fourths of the way up the side of the blade. im using a 1 inch belt sander with some slack. Any advice? thanks
 
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