Search for the Magic Heat Treatment

Hey Scott! Haven't seen you here in a while! I do recall, you've really taking a liking to O1 tool steel, and for good reasons! I've been anxious to see some of your kitchen knives, because it seems you've put a lot of thought and care into research on the heat treat for O1 especially!
 
I like working with O1 for a couple of reasons. First, because it is still used industrially, it is easy to find for a reasonable price. Second, you can find it in thickness from 1/64" to 1" by 64s. third, with a good temperature control and quenchant, it is easy to heat treat, most of what you can buy is ready to be machined and heat treat. even at Rc64, it is not hard to establish and keep a hair shaving edge.
scott
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a small paring knife, 3 1/2" cutting edge, 3/64" at spine, O1 at Rc63-64, maple handle, total weight 1.7oz
 
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This is an international community. My children read this and your passive aggressive attitude towards an Asian contributor has been duly noted.

MY God did send down the steel along with everything else. Respect our Creator and leave him out of these veiled attacks of "you know who". If Asians and Christians cannot contribute without being attacked then don't expect our patronage.

Also, when complaining about other people's grammar, make sure your comments are grammatically pristine
 
unklfranco said:
This is an international community. My children read this and your passive aggressive attitude towards an Asian contributor has been duly noted.

MY God did send down the steel along with everything else. Respect our Creator and leave him out of these veiled attacks of "you know who". If Asians and Christians cannot contribute without being attacked then don't expect our patronage.

Also, when complaining about other people's grammar, make sure your comments are grammatically pristine
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Huh? If you are offended by this thread then YOU are the one with the problem. This is just one persons experience while he attended knife shows over the years.

No one has a problem with Luongs heat treatment. The results speak for themselves. It is his fantastic metallurgical claims that some of us are struggling with.

I've also seen many knife makers over the years with similar stories. They have developed good heat treating for blades but have problems explaining the metallurgy.

There is a lot of gibberish here sometimes. To protect the over all membership, it is sometimes necessary to voice an opposing position.

There are many things that contribute to the over all knife. Proper heat treating is only one thing.

A person with a PhD in metallurgy and works for one of the largest producers of steel in the world, should be able to contribute regularly without ridicule.

Hoss
 
Mysterious-invisible-bigotry aside (no clue what that person is even talking about, though the poking fun at Jesus dropping steel on people maybe was part of that?) I just wanted to say thanks for a great thread! I'm new to all this, and when us newbs see makers (including real pro ones) using heat treatments ranging from blowtorch-to-non-magnetic-quench-in-canola right up to using 5-10 different normalization cycles, quenches, cryo treatments, etc... it gets confusing to say the least!

I had a feeling that this was all about those fine-tuning adjustments to get the last tiny % of performance out of the steel, but it's good to hear that reaffirmed by everyone here. Now I can get on with learning the BASIC heat treating that I need to, without stressing over whether I'm missing out on super-performance just because I don't have liquid nitrogen lying around :)

I'll try more complex treatments once I actually know what I'm doing and understand the metallurgy behind them.
 
I have to agree with Devin on one point:
Sometimes people get too technical and hung up on things that don't matter. As my old friend Sigmund once said, "Sometimes a cigar just a cigar."

Basic HT and basic metallurgy will make high quality blades without techno-jargon.
 
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