Should I buy a a kiln and learn to do my own heat treating.

[Biggie357]

I'm new to knifemaking and am getting some tools together to help me along with that. I am a novice and only plan on doing this as a hobby for the foreseeable future. One of the things I am stuck on is should I get a kiln and learn to do my own heat treating or send them out to a professional like Peters. I originally planned to send them out but the lead time is at least 4 weeks. I don't know if I'm patient enough to wait that long to finish a project I start. I would love some guidance as to which is the better route for a novice like myself to take. Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[Juha Perttula]

If you are interested in heat treatment buy a kiln. I think it is the best part of knife making. However, heat treatment is not easy, and if you are not very interested in it, I recommend send your blades to professional.

 

[Rival1314]

Personally I do both.....

If Im using a steel like s35, CPM154, M390 etc....those can have complex heat treat and temper cycles, they take time to learn and get good at and you will likely need more than just a kiln. Those I may send out to Peters...and while I wait for them to get turned around, I'll work on another knife in O1 or 1084, which has a fairly simple heat treat and temper process. This allows me to hone my basics while still being able to offer some blades in top tier steels. It also allows me to stay busy while waiting for the ones I sent away

 

[Biggie357]

Personally I do both.....

If Im using a steel like s35, CPM154, M390 etc....those can have complex heat treat and temper cycles, they take time to learn and get good at and you will likely need more than just a kiln. Those I may send out to Peters...and while I wait for them to get turned around, I'll work on another knife in O1 or 1084, which has a fairly simple heat treat and temper process. This allows me to hone my basics while still being able to offer some blades in top tier steels. It also allows me to stay busy while waiting for the ones I sent away

Thanks. I really appreciate it . Like I said I'm a total novice and every bit of input helps.

 

[SeppukuSamurai]

If I were you, there are so many aspects to knife making that I would, personally, perfect before ever trying to undertake the heat treatment process.

What I would focus on first are - Grinding out blades and perfecting bevels/sharpening. Shaping handles. Fitting complete knives. Some basic finishing work. Some basic filing work. A solid and well examined understanding of materials and processes.

The reason I think that you should wait on the heat treating front is that I believe it's one of the more expensive processes, a kiln being just the first step, and that I can think of a dozen VERY accomplished makers that don't do their own heat treats and for good reason.

That's just me. If this is a particular aspect of knifemaking that interests you the most, then pursue it.

Good look either way.

 

[SeppukuSamurai]

Plus, being that you're a complete novice, there are methods available for heat treating without a kiln. I've watched guys rig up some pseudo-kilns in their back yard that have worked for the basic blades they were attempting to craft. Perhaps that's a start.

 

[midnight flyer]

If I were you, there are so many aspects to knife making that I would, personally, perfect before ever trying to undertake the heat treatment process.

What I would focus on first are - Grinding out blades and perfecting bevels/sharpening. Shaping handles. Fitting complete knives. Some basic finishing work. Some basic filing work. A solid and well examined understanding of materials and processes SNIP

I think this is great advice. We have a great knife making community group around here, some do it for fun and some do it for money. Mostly for fun. They heat treat their own simple high carbon steels like car springs they use for choppers, metal files and ferrier's rasps that they use for fixed blades, and one of the high schools that teaches how to be a farrier and teaches knife making uses 1095 they buy as flat stock. All of these guys have one thing in common; their steel supply is cheap, plentiful, and the heat treat is easy to learn. They use anything from the homemade kilns (search YouTube for "homemade kilns" or "knife making kilns", etc.) to just doing it in a charcoal fire. This gives them the chance to practice and explore knife making techniques and processes without breaking the bank. More importantly, it allows them to practice so they can develop the hand skills needed to turn out a quality product.

But... for the few that go on to start making knives on a more serious basis, they send out all their complex steels to a knife supply place near here that also offers commercial heat treat. The more blades they send in at a time, the cheaper it is, so it is a great deal for the makers that are buddies, and even better for the high school teacher's class.

If and when they do more complex steels they do not forge it. Almost to a man the use the stock removal method for their stainless efforts, and then send them to the same place for heat treat. After visiting that place in Houston (look it up, not a member so no name mention) they told me how they heat treat each stainless differently and charge for the complexity of the treatment. Yikes! I wouldn't want to spend A DAY monitoring and timing the kiln, and all the electricity needed to power a very expensive kiln so I could treat one or two knives a week.

Robert

 

[ShannonSteelLabs]

I reccomend sending them out
I use Peter's and have been for 5 years. Excellent results awesome people

Focus your time on grinding and learning the basics. Sending them out takes the worry out of the HT process. If you like give it a few years before buying an oven.

While you wait for your knives to come back, make more knives and have fun with it. Try new steels out that arent super hard to grind. 8670, 5160, 1084, O1 and so on.
Best of luck!

 

[Gvard]

Start out with simple carbon steels like O1, 80crv2, 1080 and similar. Heat treat them yourself. You're going to mess up many knives as a novice, so paying for expensive, hard to grind steels, paying for heat treatment, shipping back and forth and waiting for weeks for them to come back just to end up with an ugly knife that has a weird feeling handle and uneven bevels doesn't make any sense and is a waste of money.

 

[Sonnydaze]

I'm new to knifemaking and am getting some tools together to help me along with that. I am a novice and only plan on doing this as a hobby for the foreseeable future. One of the things I am stuck on is should I get a kiln and learn to do my own heat treating or send them out to a professional like Peters. I originally planned to send them out but the lead time is at least 4 weeks. I don't know if I'm patient enough to wait that long to finish a project I start. I would love some guidance as to which is the better route for a novice like myself to take. Thanks for any help you can provide.

Peters is great, butI believe that there may be some other folks here who offer heat-treating. You are NEW and there is likely a learning curve to MANY aspects of knifemaking.. Your interest is admirable, but don't be hasty...
I think you would be better served by running your question here...
https://www.bladeforums.com/forums/shop-talk-bladesmith-questions-and-answers.741/

 

[TILLER]

I attempted heat treating O1 with a fire first and then a home made one brick style forge. Results were not all that impressive. I bought a used heat treat kiln and the difference was huge.

I find a lot of satisfaction in learning about, and doing my own heat treating. If you think you would enjoy it and you can afford the up front cost of a kiln (or the time to make one) then I think you should do it. If you don’t have any interest just send out for heat treat.

Seems like some people particularly like or dislike different steps in the process. For example I have never enjoyed making a sheath. I still do it and I like being able to tell people that I made it and explain how if they ask.

I think another advantage to doing it yourself is that you can easily do one or two. Then take what you learned from the design and construction of that knife and put it into your next. I would be tempted to wait until I had 20 or whatever number gets me to the lower cost/piece if I were sending it to Peters. And even now it would take me months to get to that number.

 

[midnight flyer]

As a separate thought, I was thinking about the direction of this thread and my conversations with the guy that teaches knife making that I met.

One of the things that I thought was really smart was that he sent his students to Home Depot or Lowe's to take all the wood paint stirring sticks that they would let them have.

He has his students practice grinding and shaping on the wood stir sticks rather than a piece of metal. Personally, I thought that was pretty damn smart as they could do it with little danger, no sparks, and his students can concentrate on how to hold the material when approaching the grinder.

He won't let them grind a piece of metal until they can grind straight lines on a stir stick! Again, pretty smart...

Robert

 

[Randy3000]

I am not interested in doing my own stainless heat treat. I fully appreciate stainless steel, but i do prefer carbon steel a little bit more because i like patina. I say about 80% what i make is carbon steel i heat treat myself and 20% is stainless i send out. In a year that ratio will likely change, but for now that is what it is. All my stainless knives are copies of ones i made and experimented design in carbon. So the stainless ones i pay to have HTed i know will become a good knife.

 

[JTknives]

I would say send your blades out. Heat treating can be a big expense to get set up to do right. Not saying you can’t get a hard blade with a magnet and a BBQ pit. I just don’t think spending all the time on the knife is worth it if your just going to hack the heat treat. I’m hoping to have time open for heat treating once blade show west is done. I’m actually picking up a largr tempering oven today so that should speed things along nicely.

 

[scott.livesey]

check ebay, craigslist, and local paper and find a used front door kiln. i found a used paragon(max temp 1750F) for about 300 delivered. gets hot enough to do most high carbon steel. the kiln i bought is big enough for a 12" piece of steel, so an 8" blade with 4" tang. that said, $300 can heat treat a lot of blades, enough to decide how deep into knife making you wish to get. in NE Indiana there should be many places doing HT you can do business with.

 

[Biggie357]

If I were you, there are so many aspects to knife making that I would, personally, perfect before ever trying to undertake the heat treatment process.

What I would focus on first are - Grinding out blades and perfecting bevels/sharpening. Shaping handles. Fitting complete knives. Some basic finishing work. Some basic filing work. A solid and well examined understanding of materials and processes.

The reason I think that you should wait on the heat treating front is that I believe it's one of the more expensive processes, a kiln being just the first step, and that I can think of a dozen VERY accomplished makers that don't do their own heat treats and for good reason.

That's just me. If this is a particular aspect of knifemaking that interests you the most, then pursue it.

Good look either way.

I appreciate the advice. It totally makes sense to learn the basics of grinding ,shaping and sharpening a blade. Before I worry about the heat treat. Sometimes I get ahead of myself.

 

[Biggie357]

As a separate thought, I was thinking about the direction of this thread and my conversations with the guy that teaches knife making that I met.

One of the things that I thought was really smart was that he sent his students to Home Depot or Lowe's to take all the wood paint stirring sticks that they would let them have.

He has his students practice grinding and shaping on the wood stir sticks rather than a piece of metal. Personally, I thought that was pretty damn smart as they could do it with little danger, no sparks, and his students can concentrate on how to hold the material when approaching the grinder.

He won't let them grind a piece of metal until they can grind straight lines on a stir stick! Again, pretty smart...

Robert

I think that sounds like a great idea also. I will be picking some up the next time I'm there. Thanks