Questions on damascus

[Shotgunone]

I have some questions on damascus use in knife blades. I have some thunderforge damascus and was wondering ....

1. When you heat treat this in a oven do you wrap it in tool wrap like stainless or do you just put it in the oven at temperature? Information I have says heat to 1400 or 1500 degrees or non magnetic.

2. Sheet that came with this says it is either O1 or 1095 and quenching suggest using oil (olive oil) or brine (homemade high concentration salt water). Which would you use?

3. Sheet warns about cracking the blade when you quench. So what causes these cracks and how do keep it from happening?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

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Tony Huffman
thuffman@texinet.net
Sporting Clays & Shotguns ... my other bad habit!

 

[Bruce Bump]

I have recently had a bad experience with thunderforged damascus. I heat-treated a nice dagger in homeade brine as the directions suggest. It came out of the quench warped. It staightened slightly but was twisted also. It snapped in half when trying to take out the twist. My advice is to heat it only to non-magnetic and use warm light weight oil to quench it. Leave it fat and regrind after HT. It gets too hard too fast in brine. I personally think it wouldnt have warped if it was normalized properly. They wouldnt warrenty it and said it must be my fault because they have sold over 3,000,000 bars and have had only 8 complaints. I did 4 bars that day: 2 were thunder forged and 2 were my own damascus. Mine stayed straight theirs both twisted. I quenched mine in oil and theirs in the brine. My steel was 1084/15/20 theirs is 1095 and 01. I cant see why they mix an oil quench steel(01) with a water(brine) quench steel(1095). Has anyone else had any trouble with their steel? Maybe it is just me. Bruce B

 

[Bruce Evans]

Bruce,I have found that daggers are easy to twist and warp like this when quenched.I have found with the different mixes that I make that the safest way to quench is to always use the oil as brine quench steel will also quench in oil.I also quench Daggers after I profile them and do the whole grind after heat treat.
Shotgunone,since you are using a high carbon Damascus you don't need to worry about the stainless wrap,I have seen the quench done with the wrap on it,but it was done in a oven and soaked at temperature before the quench,I wouldn't try it in a forge as I would be afraid that I didn't get the heat all the way through the Blade and You may not get a good quench with the wrap on.I would just do it the old fashioned way and grind the scale back off after heat treat.
Bruce

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Bruce Evans Handcrafted Knives
The soul of the Knife begins in the Fire!!!!!
Member of,AKTI#A000223 and The American Bladesmith Society