Skeletonizing holes can tweak/twist blade during quench ?

A

Angus McGunnigl

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May 22, 2002
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Does anyone have an idea/formula or info on the possible effects of improperly sized/spaced lightening holes on a full tang blade ?

Maybe nothing to worry about ?
 
I think part of it is what steel are you using. On D2 I don't worry about it as it is an air-hardening steel. Air hardening steels have the most dimensional stability when hardening, next are oil hardening steels like O1. The least stable are the water hardening like 1095, w1&2. I would never do this on 1095. I guess you could try not quenching the tangs or clay coating them.
 
How much oversized/improperly spaced are you talking about? IB2V4U shows a lot of large holes on his blanks. On another thread I noticed how hollow the tang was and nobody has mentioned it being too empty.

That's a scary amount of blanks, ib2v4u!

microtech.jpg
 
I tried to eyeball some pin holes on an O1 handle and had to re-drill holes that were properly spaced. Maybe I'm overthinking it ? I',m probably overthinking it. Thanks
 
It's not the oil quench that warps it though, it's what happens during the austenizing that causes the warp.
 
It shouldn't be a problem. I've made a bunch of knives from O1 with lightening holes drilled in the tangs with no warping issues whatsoever. A good idea is to do a normalizing cycle prior to heat treating as any machining process can add stress into steel that can cause warping in the quench. I've also done holes in tangs with W2 and 1084, and I've made knives with skletonized handles in 1095.

--nathan
 
silver_pilate said:
It shouldn't be a problem. I've made a bunch of knives from O1 with lightening holes drilled in the tangs with no warping issues whatsoever. A good idea is to do a normalizing cycle prior to heat treating as any machining process can add stress into steel that can cause warping in the quench. I've also done holes in tangs with W2 and 1084, and I've made knives with skletonized handles in 1095.

--nathan
Click to expand...


Same here. No warpage concerns in the tang area with lightening holes. Steels are 1095/W1
 
silver_pilate said:
A good idea is to do a normalizing cycle prior to heat treating as any machining process can add stress into steel that can cause warping in the quench.
--nathan
Click to expand...

I think it is important to distinguish between normalizing cycles and stress-relief cycles.

I'm not an expert, so feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but...
Normalizing cycles take the steel above critical and are frequently used to refine the grain structure. Normalizing is frequently used after the repeated high-heats and physical stresses imposed during the forging process.

For stock-removal makers working with known steel from a steel supplier, it is seldom necessary to run full normalizing cycles. We can get by with sub-critical stress relief cycles. I work with 1080 and 1095. For me this means 2-4 stress relief heats to 1200F with an air cool to room temp in between each. Any warping will show up after the first or second cycle and is easily corrected in a simple straightening jig. If stress-relief cycles are run, and warps are corrected at this stage, their is seldom any warping after the final quench cycle.

Erin
 
True, Erin, a stress relieving operation is usually sufficient for good condition stock when stock removing. A normalizing cycle will set the steel up with a more uniform grain structure, and I use it after forging, whereas most spherodized or HRA steels will be pretty uniform as is (or so we can assume ;) ).

--nathan
 
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