O1,torchs,and temper lines??

[Dr.Lathe]

All this discussion on heat treating, torchs and temper lines over the past week has been very interesting!!
My small using knives are made from D2. The larger knives are made of A2. Both done in an oven and air cooled. The most exciting thing about my entire process is putting the blades in the Liquid Nitrogen!
As I mentioned in a previous responce, I like to work with O1 and I have an alomost endless supply of it. My company no longer uses it for tooling and said "TAKE IT"!!!
Finally my question-s: What can I do with 01 other than my oven/oil/oven temper process??
Would it benefit from the multiple quench??
Will I be able to reveal temper lines with a ferric chloride etch??
Finally, I am making a small neck knife version of my Tanto in D2. I know this is probably crazy but is there any way of heat treating D2 that would provide a temper line??
Thanks guys!
Neil Blackwood


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http://members.aol.com/blademakr/BlackwoodWP.html

 

[Ed Caffrey]

Neil,
O-1 won't benifit much from the multiple quench, however you can get temper lines out of almost any oil hardening steel. It may require a little experimenting with different types of quench media. The temper line is nothing more than a grain boundary where one type of structure changes to another. The actual temper line is a transition zone. As for the D-2, you can get a temper line by oil quenching, but I haven't tested it enough to say if oil quenching is desireable as far as using goes. I do know that the etch time for D-2 is about twice what you would expect for something with less Cr. One last thing on temper lines.....if you want to make the temper lines really stand out, hand sand the blade to no more than 600 grit before etching. I usually etch from a 400 grit hand finish. But each grit will give a slightly different effect to the finshed etch.
http://www,mtn-webtech.com/~caffrey




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Ed Caffrey
"The Montana Bladesmith"

 

[Dr.Lathe]

Thanks Ed,
I will experiment with some 01. Threre is a large hunting knife blank thats been hanging in my shop for a while...... Hopefully this will be my first temper line blade!
I've also finished about a dozen of my D2 neck knife blanks. I could afford to use ONE for R&D....
Neil