Opinions on steel that I can heat treat at home

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Craig Daniel

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Feb 17, 2016
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I have had terrible service getting blades heat treated and am looking for a good steel that I can do my own heat treating myself with a homemade oven, I have a map gas torch and fire bricks and canola oil to harden blades and temper in my wifes oven. I am considering what I call easier steels and would like you guys to guide me down the right path, 8670m, 15n20, 1095, 1084. I appreciate any advice and help.
 
8670, 80crv2, 1084. I have an old kiln with aftermarket pid controller/thermocouple and gallon can of Parks 50. used to have 1-brick forge and canola oil on hot plate. 8670 is my favorite
 
Craig Daniel said:
Is the 8670 from Admiral steel?
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I have used 8670 from Alpha Knife and Pops. I have not used what is listed on Admiral steel, which is listed as 8670M. I do not know the differences. I have lately been using 0.100" thicknesses so what is at Admiral is too thick for what I'd want lately anyway. But would like to try from them. I plan on getting my CPM 154 from them, and just got some 410 Stainless liners.
 
1084 is the easiest to get right in the forge. Perfect amount of carbon, no alloys to worry about. That doesn't mean others can't be done well, they just take more experience to get right. I agree that 15n20 is another great option, but to get right you need a little more control.

Basically without some better control of your heat, your going to be hoping that any other steel comes out as good as 1084 would. It's highly unlikely that you can take advantage of the added alloys or carbon of any other steel without better control of heat and/or soak times.

Given your limited tools, 1084 is going to be really tough to beat. It's simple but no slouch. Treated correctly It's an excellent blade. 1084 was my go to before I got a ht oven....not saying you should do what I did......I just read a lot and took the advice from the guys that figured that out and did what they did.

Of course I was a bit stubborn and bought several other steels thinking I could figure it out...and did to some degree....I got several knives out of several steels to perform almost as good as 1084!!

I believe there is a couple newer ones that might be worth looking into...cruforge I believe is made for this. No experience with it and haven't heard much about it.
 
I really appreciate all the help, can you guys give me your heat treat recipe for 1084? I know I can look up the procedure but I would like the actual one you are using to get the best out of the steel. Do I need to normalize 1084? I will be ordering from New Jersey Steel, their steel comes pickled and annealed, whatever pickled means?
 
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Have you looked at Alpha Knife Supply for the 1084? Many times they will have best price around for small amounts of steel, and their steel comes ready for HT without any special heat treatment to prepare the steel for HT.
 
Craig Daniel said:
I really appreciate all the help, can you guys give me your heat treat recipe for 1084? I know I can look up the procedure but I would like the actual one you are using to get the best out of the steel. Do I need to normalize 1084? I will be ordering from New Jersey Steel, their steel comes pickled and annealed, whatever pickled means?
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Pickled is the acid soak to remove the mill scale. Definitely worth it as it is very hard and wears down belts fast
 
1084
you should normalize 3 times to refine the grain but you don't have to.
1084 can be heated just above non magnetic ( meaning it will no longer be attracted to a magnet) and then holding it there for about 1 minute and then quenched in heated canola oil (about) 120 degrees.
 
Kevin Cashen has a DVD on 1084 and Knife Steel Nerds has some good information on heat treating out of a forge.

I’ve always been outspoken on the use of a forge for heat treating. Austenitizing temperature is the most important thing in heat treating and you’ll never get that without a proper furnace.

As soon as you can, buy good equipment and quenching oil, do your research, practice, do some testing, and you’ll make a good knife.

Hoss
 
forgive me for hijacking, but it's kinda just a tangent...... I too, am soon in a simular situation.
Not happy with the usual heat treaters.
Exploring my options.

I'd like an oven someday. and would like to learn on quality, but easy steels.

My shop is in my basement.
I've got good power options there.



are you heat treaters at home inside or outside?
any in a house/basement?

or only outside/garage/barns/etc with tall ceilings?

obviously, I'm worried about flareups.
Is that a good reason to go to air cooled steels.

*I'm seeing myself having an oven, but still sending out steel to be treated that needs to be Cryo, or for techniques beyond my skill set. (but then why bother getting and oven at all?)

Thanks.
 
Use a baffle....and do it in the dark...always keep your light the same when your ht by eye. Just some sort of tube steel your knife fits in to keep the flames off of your steel and help even out the heat.

For a forge it goes a bit like this.

Get it really hot, don't soak. Take it out a cool to black.

Get it not that hot but still pretty hot..same air cool to black.

Heat past magnetic a bit. Cool to black.

Heat to just under magnetic. Cool to black.

Heat to cherry red. Cool to black.

Heat just past magnetic and quench in parks 50....canola at 130 degrees will work, but honestly a couple gallons of parks 50 is a good investment and will last a very long time. 2 gallons minimum.

Then test your knife...if it's a good knife, it worked.

Good luck
 
Crag the Brewer said:
forgive me for hijacking, but it's kinda just a tangent...... I too, am soon in a simular situation.
Not happy with the usual heat treaters.
Exploring my options.

I'd like an oven someday. and would like to learn on quality, but easy steels.

My shop is in my basement.
I've got good power options there.



are you heat treaters at home inside or outside?
any in a house/basement?

or only outside/garage/barns/etc with tall ceilings?

obviously, I'm worried about flareups.
Is that a good reason to go to air cooled steels.

*I'm seeing myself having an oven, but still sending out steel to be treated that needs to be Cryo, or for techniques beyond my skill set. (but then why bother getting and oven at all?)

Thanks.
Click to expand...
My shop is in my basement as well. I still use my forge (on my back patio) from time to time if the project is too large for my oven. Air hardening steels are handy in cold or rainy weather since heat treating can be done safely inside, which is another advantage of having an oven.
 
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