Hello,
As this is my first post here I thought I should make a quick introduction so you know my experience level. I am a long time lurker on these forums but I only started forging blades a few months ago during the Fall of 2016. Because of travel for work I have only completed a few blades so far. My charcoal forge was built outdoors and is away from my home, so I tend to only be able to practice sporadically.
The current blade I am working was forged with Aldo's 1084. My problem with this blade so far is that it failed to properly harden despite multiple quench attempts. I included a photo of the blade after it was tempered below. You can see the tempering color is very uneven on the blade. My current theory is that I overheated the steel quite severely as I was quenching this outdoors on a sunny day (Quenched in approx. 2 gallons of canola oil) . I normally test with a magnet for critical temp but was being bullheaded and was more concerned with the steel color that day.
My question is this: Would my theory that I significantly overheated the steel before the quench account for the lack of hardness in the blade? And if so is this blade done for, or can I normalize and re-quench to achieve appropriate hardness and grain size?
I also want to thank all of you on this forum for the plethora of information you freely share. This was and is a huge resource for me as I am beginning to learn about this craft.
Thank you.
As this is my first post here I thought I should make a quick introduction so you know my experience level. I am a long time lurker on these forums but I only started forging blades a few months ago during the Fall of 2016. Because of travel for work I have only completed a few blades so far. My charcoal forge was built outdoors and is away from my home, so I tend to only be able to practice sporadically.
The current blade I am working was forged with Aldo's 1084. My problem with this blade so far is that it failed to properly harden despite multiple quench attempts. I included a photo of the blade after it was tempered below. You can see the tempering color is very uneven on the blade. My current theory is that I overheated the steel quite severely as I was quenching this outdoors on a sunny day (Quenched in approx. 2 gallons of canola oil) . I normally test with a magnet for critical temp but was being bullheaded and was more concerned with the steel color that day.
My question is this: Would my theory that I significantly overheated the steel before the quench account for the lack of hardness in the blade? And if so is this blade done for, or can I normalize and re-quench to achieve appropriate hardness and grain size?
I also want to thank all of you on this forum for the plethora of information you freely share. This was and is a huge resource for me as I am beginning to learn about this craft.
Thank you.
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