One Brick Forge Problems

[directdrive]

Hi, All: I've made Wayne Goddard's "One Brick Forge". I took an old Nicholson bastard file, annealed it and removed stock to shape the blade. I put it in the one brick forge and used a mapp gas burner to bring up the heat.

For those of you familiar with this forge, there is a "fire-hole" for the burner nozzle. The remainder of the forge is a 1" x 1.5" hole going through the brick from end to end.

Once I heated the blade to orange, I pulled it out and quenched it in corn oil. I tested the blade with a file. The blade is 4" long. From the tip back for 1.5", the file would not scratch the blade. Hard as a rock. From that point to the ricasso area, the file did cut. That area did not harden. From the ricasso to the butt of the handle, the file would not cut. That was hard. In other words, only the area that had been in direct contact with the flame from the burner was soft. This area also showed significant carbon runs. Have I overheated the blade in this area?

What can I do to equalize the heat and achieve hardness in this area? I thought it might be advisable to place a baffle of some sort between the flame and the blade. I could probably buy some ss foil and wrap the blade to prevent the carbon run but don't want to invest in it.

If anyone has some suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks!

 

[Tommegow]

I HT 0-1 in my vert forge. I use thin satanite dried on to the blade to protect the blade from the oxidizing effects of the high heat. Maybe you need to sand the area and try again. You might not be testing the actual blade but the scale instead.

 

[Steven Penner]

I thought it might be advisable to place a baffle of some sort between the flame and the blade.

Search on muffle forge
build a 2 brick forge around a piece of pipe large enough to hold your blades.
plug one end with a pipe plug and place a loose charcoal piece in the near end.
this will maintain neutral or reducing atmosphere and reduce decarb.

be sure that you leave it to soak long enough to acheive a full even heat.

overheated? maybe. Under heated? maybe

1095 is sensitive to fast quench. It may be possible that you didn't acheive full hardness because of slow quench.

try it again and see if you can get full hardness with even heat
nothing to lose

 

[JTknives]

This is a common problem with one brick forges. but go to my website and look under videos you will see at the bottom of that page some videos about heat treating, i used a one brick forge in this video. it's importint to keep moving the blade in and out so that the heat can spread out. if you dont do this then you will get a hot spot that will over heat by quite a bit