- Joined
- Sep 9, 2003
- Messages
- 2,361
Grad school? While I hate to disappoint I have always been rather proud of my limited higher education, I guess I have encountered too many educated idiots in my life to put too much stock in letters following ones name. My grandfather was perhaps the sharpest and most talented man I ever knew and he never made it past the 6th grade. Although I really appreciate the votes of confidence from the folks here, gurus or authorities often claim to possess exclusive information of their own, while I can only claim to have read too many metallurgy texts and applied that information gathered by real experts to my own work. All I really do is let you know what is in any of those books if you havent got around to reading them yourself yet.
Heat bluing is a touchy topic if one doesnt have all the facts of the particular blade. If the steels are the right alloys and the bluing salts are capable of low enough temperatures then you may come out all right. However if the maker is not keenly aware of these issues then the results could be disastrous for overall hardness. Many that I have talked to when I noticed treatment on a knife had no qualms about sacrificing hardness for the look they wanted since they sort of saw the knife as male jewelry than a tool. I cannot force the standards for my knives on other people but this is a concept that would be unfathomable in my shop. If I had to do it, I would carefully choose my alloys to handle higher tempering heats and find the lowest temp I could get away with on the hot salts. If you have the ability to do proper soaks and nail the heat treatment many hypereutectoid alloys can go as high as 550F and still be 58HRC, however I would never expect to achieve this if working with a forge or torch for heat treating. However I would have no way of knowing what the final results are in the gentlemans knives that you mention without firsthand knowledge of his materials and processes.
Tai does have some valid points about edge geometry and their power to make or break a knife for its intended task. A knife made for fine slicing that has a very obtuse edge and heavy secondary shoulders on the edge will never perform its task up to par no matter how fantastic the heat treatment, but if the heat treatment is there one can always reshape that edge and be back in business, not so if the heat treat is off. I also agree with Tai that there is no best way to make knives as I believe each tool should be designed specifically for its intended purpose, thus precluding the very notion of one best knife. Instead we have numerous possible combinations of heat treatments, geometries and edge types all geared to different tasks. Using the exact same formula for a machete that you would for a skinning knife is going to result in a lousy tool.
Not at all, some of the best questions asked in this thread were yours. I like it when people sincerely ask me to verify my claims, it keep me on my toes and grounded in sound facts. As for your tests, perhaps one hot topic at a time, I am even more opinionated about testing than I am about quenching, and it invariably gets very complicated.
Didn't you watch T.V. last night? Do you own a T.V. at this time? If I am sidestepping and dodging simple questions in order to give prepackaged talking points for my response, I may just be joining in the spirit of the season.
