Stainless steel tempering

[bill may]

Ok a friend of mine had the Ideal of turning a cheap crappy Chinese 420 stainless folding knife in to a fix blade so he welded a handle on to the blade and wants me to put wood scales on it.
With that said I still want to a good job with this knife. He's a good friend. I know the temper is more than likely lost due to the welding. I am a novice I deal with 1084 I don't know anything about stainless. My question is will the method use to harden & temper 1084 work to at least bring back enough tempering to hold a good edge? I can't do anything to complex if my method doesn't work I'll put a nice handle on it and explain the many problems with what he's done and go on. thanks for the feed back.

 

[AVigil]

Nope,

You need a temp controlled heat treating oven, stainless foil for the stainless 420

 

[me2]

I'd be more concerned with the weld than it holding an edge.

 

[bill may]

thank you for the input. handles and a talk it is.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Bill,
Depending on his welding skills, the blade may be fine as is. I would bake it at 400F for an hour just to remove any brittleness at the weld. Then just clean it up and add the scales. The blade may be pretty much what it was before the handle was added.

 

[bill may]

Thanks Stacy for the help sounds like the best thing to do.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

BTW, I fixed your title. Unless you meant that he didn't pay for the knife - steal/steel.

 

[bill may]

My hillbilly will always show through