Quench Oil

A

AKHammonds

Joined
Mar 22, 2007
Messages
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I know there have been hundreds of questions on quench oil on this forum..but here goes another....I am stating out with 5160..I plan to diffrental heat with clay. I have a choice between PAAA SlowQuench from Ellis Custom Knifeworks @ $25 a gallon OR 28 second Quench oil from McMaster-Carr @ 12.50 a gallon....My thought after reading as much as I could on the subject is they both will work and I am not sure one is worth twich as much as the other???? Any thoughs on the matter...:confused:
 
5160 will take a faster quench. Though not an actual water hardening steel a 28 second quench I think may be a bit slow. Go with the McMaster Fast Quench, it is a 9-11 second. Then you can also get into 1095 and the W series steel later without having to buy more oil. I have used it with 5160 and it works great. Also 5160 does not do well with clay hardening. It will take a line but the chromium prevents much other than a straight line with a little frosting.

Chuck
 
I have worked with the Parks products and if I had to make your decision, I would probably give the Mc-Master Carr a shot. 5160 is very forgiving in the quench and will allow such experimenting without disaster, and if you don't like it you are only out $12.50. The AAA will work great for 5160 as well. If this were a 10XX steel and you were weighing something against Parks #50 I would say don't bother as ther is no substitute in my experience, but you have a little more wiggle room here.

The debate of whether motor oil, lard, wesson, crisco, ATF, gloop, glop, mud or even pee, is just as good has been beaten to death here. I am so tired of making enemies over such an insignificant yet common sense thing, that I would prefer to ask but one thing. The proponents of the alternative always use the same argument, that it "works just fine". To this I would ask the criteria of judgement to be defined. What is "just fine" and how do you determine "just fine"?

This is not a challenge or citicism, particularly of you JTknives, you are probably only susggesting what others have explained to you as "working just fine", it is just my attempt to understand the passion with which some folks embrace old motor oil, I have angered more than a few people by quentioning it, and that has always been an enigma to me.
 
Kevin R. Cashen said:
The debate of whether motor oil, lard, wesson, crisco, ATF, gloop, glop, mud or even pee, is just as good has been beaten to death here. I am so tired of making enemies over such an insignificant yet common sense thing, that I would prefer to ask but one thing. The proponents of the alternative always use the same argument, that it "works just fine". To this I would ask the criteria of judgement to be defined. What is "just fine" and how do you determine "just fine"?

This is not a challenge or citicism, particularly of you JTknives, you are probably only susggesting what others have explained to you as "working just fine", it is just my attempt to understand the passion with which some folks embrace old motor oil, I have angered more than a few people by quentioning it, and that has always been an enigma to me.
Click to expand...

Kevin I have read allot of your posts and you really seem to really know what you are talking about. Now I have not seen any of the arguments you talk about, but I have seen many of the posts where they this will work just fine. Just so you know I look forward to hearing advice from you. Personally I am from the old school, where why do I want something that will just work when with the same effort I can I have something that will work great. Thanks for all the help.
 
I have been using the Mc Master Carr quench for the last dozen knives after 30 plus years or so of using motor oil, vegetable oil, goop and voodoo mixes. Now while I'm fairly competent with the poor boy quenches, I can at least say that the Mc Master-Carr quench oil is consistent, Not much flash, low oder and very clean.
 
Kevin, what most folks say is "just fine", is a file will skate on the blade after the 10W30 quench.
What they don't know, is the blade could be much better, quenched in the proper oil.
 
o i did not mean that quench oil was not bettor than motor oil. i use onley the best materiall and processes i can. if i can onley increse my proformace by 1/2 percent its worth doing. i had just heard 10w30 works, but it was not designed for quenching. i have a locall oil distribitor about 3 min from my house. so no motor oil for me :). whats a good chevron quench oil for 5160.
 
chevron makes two quench oils and a light utility oil. the light utility oil says that it is a light parafin based oil for use in low pressure hydraulics and that it is also used as a fast quench for oil hardening steels. i think that it is "iso 22 light utility oil".
 
Oh come on Kevin,
Everybody knows that Bear Fat makes the best quench media.....and any piece of metal with rust on it (ie.- found on the ground at Grandpa's place) , must be good for knives.

Just ask anyone ...........(except that other renegade, mete).
This method is so much simpler than learning metallurgy and proper heat treatment.
But if you are hell bent on using your 10+ years of education and training in metallurgy and relying on the ASM to give you useful information, ordering steel when you could get it for free,and not recycling your motor oil as a quenchant.........Well, who am I to tell you what to do.
Stacy

BTW, Merry Christmas
 
Stacy, I had another 3/4 page rant typed up here but just hit the "delete" function instead because I will spend many more years trying to figure out the way knifemakers come to conclusions than I ever will on any metallurgical phenomenon:rolleyes:

Merry Christmas to you as well (I am grumpy because I was up all night running three @&%hole spirits off my property while they went on and on about Christmas' past, present and future, I told them to save it for the Mall rats, and put some #6 shot in their etheral arses!)
 
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