Preheating your quench oil...couple questions.

SkagSig40

SkagSig40

Joined
Feb 1, 2001
Messages
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I'm going to be quenching my first blades very soon and had a question. I made a quench tank out of a old oxygen tank that is 9" in diameter by 21" deep. It fits perfectly on an electric hot plate and gas stove I have. I was planning on preheating my canola oil to 120-150 degrees this way for 1084 steel blades. I have heard a lot of makers just drop in a red hot piece of metal to heat the oil but I'm wondering what ways everyone here has come up with.

Also does it matter that much if my oil temp is say 100 to 180 degrees as long as it is warm? Just trying to figure out how to keep track and control the oil temp right at the time my blade is heated to critical. Thank guys!
 
I heat my extra quench tanks with a heat gun. Turn it on low and point it at the tank and check it every ten min. My main quench tank has a heating elament and a temp gage. I will be converting it soon to be pid controlled. I would be woried about the weight on a hot plate. Don't want it to tip over.
 
You have 5 gallons of oil in a heavy metal tank. That is far too much weight to put on an electric hot plate. It would be OK on a gas range, but a lot on a portable gas stove. Your best bet is to heat up a 1" round bar of mild steel to red hot and stick it in the tank and stir. It will raise the temp a good bit. Repeat if needed to get to 120-130F.

The simplest is to buy a "drum Heater" rod and stick it in the tank. Some come with a pre-set temperature, which is great.
If you want to get crazy, you can run it off a PID and set to an exact temp.


Yes, the temperature is somewhat critical. I would say the effective range is 100-140F. The sweet spot is 120-130F.
 
I've been heating up five gallons of oil in a 2 foot long X 8" square steel tank for 10 years on a double burner.
The burner has survived just fine.

This is in an old shop - but you get the idea.



 
I don't heat quench oil but I needed to keep my grinding water from freezing so I put a silicon heat pad on it meant for sticking in an engine oil pan.

PID is a logic controller that uses a feedback loop to maintain a set temperature.
 
Karl B. Andersen said:
tool1c-1.jpg
Click to expand...

Anyone else notice the huge ass coil spring in this pic.
 
Karl B. Andersen said:
I've been heating up five gallons of oil in a 2 foot long X 8" square steel tank for 10 years on a double burner.
The burner has survived just fine.

This is in an old shop - but you get the idea.



Click to expand...

Yes, but yours isn't 2 feet tall and 9" wide. The weight per sq.in. on the burner coil is much greater on the vertical tank. On yours, it looks like the tank actually sits on the frame, not the coils.
 
JTknives said:
Anyone else notice the huge ass coil spring in this pic.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's pretty cool! Is that a train spring? Bet hat would make a lot of nice knives! They've used train coil springs on that TV show "forged in fire" in the past.
 
I've been meaning to upgrade my quench tank for a while. I have some 5x5 1/4'' wall square tube that I think would work nicely. I just have to weld it to a base of some kind.

Right now, I just have a piece of sch 40 PVC with a water heater element in the bottom. I put a piece of sheet metal vent pipe in the ID of the pvc pipe to act as a buffer from any blades getting poked through the side. Been using it for years with zero issue, though there was ONE time I flipped the heater element on, just as my wife came and asked me about something. About 20 minutes later it dawned on me, and I rushed to turn the switch off. The oil was at about 450 degrees IIRC, and the PVC was getting pretty soft. :D The flue pipe is no doubt what kept it from folding over on itself.

Ultimately, I would like to hook up a PID to it and move it to an all steel tank.
 
SkagSig40 said:
Yeah, that's pretty cool! Is that a train spring? Bet hat would make a lot of nice knives! They've used train coil springs on that TV show "forged in fire" in the past.
Click to expand...

In fact, that was a off-spec coil spring in the base of a huge hydraulic cylinder on an aircraft carrier. Like I said, it was off-spec and tossed into a dumpster for recycling at the plant that manufactures them. 5160.

It was right at 300 pounds.

And I had three of them.

 
Karl B. Andersen said:
In fact, that was a off-spec coil spring in the base of a huge hydraulic cylinder on an aircraft carrier. Like I said, it was off-spec and tossed into a dumpster for recycling at the plant that manufactures them. 5160.

It was right at 300 pounds.




And I had three of them.

Click to expand...

That is amazing! Is there anyway I could buy a small section of that off of you? That is if you're going to cut it up into pieces. Like a piece small enough to fit in like a flat rate USPS box. I actually probably won't make a knife out of it. I collect odd and rare pieces of steel and a piece of this would be an amazing addition to my collection! That thing is so cool and the picture of you standing next to it is really neat!
 
SkagSig40 said:
That is amazing! Is there anyway I could buy a small section of that off of you? That is if you're going to cut it up into pieces. Like a piece small enough to fit in like a flat rate USPS box. I actually probably won't make a knife out of it. I collect odd and rare pieces of steel and a piece of this would be an amazing addition to my collection! That thing is so cool and the picture of you standing next to it is really neat!
Click to expand...

They are long gone. Those pictures are 6-7 years old.
 
Stacy's temperature range is right , though there's no exact temp. Variables include how many knives will you quench , how big is the tank, etc. Heat makes the oil more fluid for pumps it also will lower the quench rates , so large knives use lower temps .
 
I use a mortar ammo case with a immersion heater controlled by a PID as per suggestions from Stacy et al. It's a very slick solution.

102c12f9b52d5ee25d8f51e3688f292a.jpg
0111c24c4e6b7cf0dd7b41eeaeab3118.jpg
 
I found and ordered this drum heater. It was $59 shipped and is 1000 watts and designed for heating 5+ gallons of vegetable oil so it should be perfect. It says it gets up to 150 degrees or a bit hotter. I'll shut it off once it hits 130 degrees. With any luck I should be quenching my very first blade this week! Anyone use one of these ever?

http://utahbiodieselsupply.com/1000wattheater.php
 
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