- Joined
- Mar 23, 2008
- Messages
- 22
Ok so I've read a ton of stuff pertaining to heat treat and temper and with so many varying opinions and throw in the technical details for each different steel type, I've basically learned only enough to confuse myself so far.
So for my first knife, I requested the input of a friend who says he knows what hes doing and I want see if the method used was good enough.
Steel type is an unknown cheapo damascus from India
The process he suggested was to use an oxy/acetylene torch to heat up the blade to red hot then he dunked the blade into oil (un-warmed) several times in a row and then allowed to air cool the rest of the way to ambient temp.
Then to temper it, he applied the torch to the spine until the dark rainbow traveled to the edge, then water quenched till cool, moved the torch down a little bit, and repeated the process along the spine until reaching the tip.
Some of this just seemed off to me but it may be because I have my head filled with so much random technical stuff that his way just seems too easy, maybe also forgetting that once upon a time blacksmiths didn't have all the scientific data available and simply did what worked.
Can anyone confirm the validity of this method and that it works well enough and why, or why not that it does/doesn't work?
So for my first knife, I requested the input of a friend who says he knows what hes doing and I want see if the method used was good enough.
Steel type is an unknown cheapo damascus from India
The process he suggested was to use an oxy/acetylene torch to heat up the blade to red hot then he dunked the blade into oil (un-warmed) several times in a row and then allowed to air cool the rest of the way to ambient temp.
Then to temper it, he applied the torch to the spine until the dark rainbow traveled to the edge, then water quenched till cool, moved the torch down a little bit, and repeated the process along the spine until reaching the tip.
Some of this just seemed off to me but it may be because I have my head filled with so much random technical stuff that his way just seems too easy, maybe also forgetting that once upon a time blacksmiths didn't have all the scientific data available and simply did what worked.
Can anyone confirm the validity of this method and that it works well enough and why, or why not that it does/doesn't work?
