Stick tang HT

Phil705

Phil705

Basic Member
Joined
Aug 23, 2007
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364
I'm in the process of making a stick/hidden tang with AEBL/304 stainless Damascus (from Jerome Weimond). I do my own HT and plate quench. I read in another thread where some makers advise not hardening the tang (or HT the tang to be less hard than the blade). My question is whether and how?

Could I just leave the tang outside the plates?

Phil705
Winthrop WA
 
Though I have not use this material before, here is what I would do. Heat and air quench as normal then draw the tang back further with a torch. Be careful not to over-heat the blade area. You can use some of that heat resistant paste or stick the blade in a bucket of water then heat the tang to draw it back. Look at the HT charts for AEBL then approximate the temp for your desired RC.
 
I have a question about this. I use Pete's HT, so for the stick tang I'm working on, I would need to draw out the the tang as mentioned above.

I don't know much about HT, so how would I do this with O-1? I have an oxy acetylene torch.
 
C Klye, just a suggestion. Heat to a dull red below non-magnetic 3 or 4 times in dim light. Do not go over non-magnetic. Then try to drill it or file it, and see how it does. If you are not going to pin the grip, don't worry about it. It only needs to be soft if you are going to drill and pin.
 
Phil705 said:
I'm in the process of making a stick/hidden tang with AEBL/304 stainless Damascus (from Jerome Weimond). I do my own HT and plate quench. I read in another thread where some makers advise not hardening the tang (or HT the tang to be less hard than the blade). My question is whether and how?

Could I just leave the tang outside the plates?

Phil705
Winthrop WA
Click to expand...


Tang must be left soft.
Just anneal the tang gently with a torch once you are done.
I'm not sure it works with such SS, though. They may just air quench.
Coating the tang with THICK refractory cement, and heating it with an oxygas torch (with the blade dipped in water) may do the trick.
 
If you need the tang soft to drill, I suggest drilling before ht. The shoulders should be filed square before ht to get you close for a press fit guard.

I use a carbide file guide after ht and etch. With the carbide file guide in place run the guide up against a disk and shoulders will be perfectly square.
 
Mike Quesenberry said:
I use a carbide file guide after ht and etch. With the carbide file guide in place run the guide up against a disk and shoulders will be perfectly square.
Click to expand...

Doh! I didn't thing of that. I scribed a line and am having a tough time getting it square, in addition to radiusing the shoulder/tang junction. I use a chainsaw file to make the radius, then try to square up the shoulder on the platen and it eats into the radius.
 
OK, back to the basic assumption. I always drill before HT, so I was going from another thread which suggested that it was better for a hidden tang to be softer than the blade. I assumed that meant the tang would be stronger if it is not as hard as the blade. That got me to ask about annealing the tang. So does the tang need to be annealed if not for drilling??!! I always need to question my assumption!
 
Assuming that the tang is tightly secured, it will not matter. If it cannot move inside the grip, then it cannot bend, or break. technically, a hardened and tempered tang will be stronger, but to no physical advantage. I like the first half inch at the base hardened, but beyond, I don't care as long as I don't need to drill.
 
The stresses and therefore the point at where the knife will break is not the tang, for the reasons mentioned above. Its the area at the shoulders and just forward of the shoulders that need to be in the 40 to 45 range as apposed to bevels and edges which should be more in the 59 to 62 range.
As to the tang itself, in a stick tang knife, I still soften the tang whether it is to be drilled or not, just so I can tweak the angle a bit if its needed to fit the handle bore.
Remember you get the same amount of deflection, for the energy applied, whether the steel is hardened and tempered or fully annealed. Its that the hardened piece will break where the annealed piece will bend past a given point.
If the blade will not flex past a given point without breaking at the shoulders then the blade is too hard and is not ductile enough.
Hardened and tempered steel is not any stronger than steel that is annealed or normalized, it is just more abrasion resistant, tougher and springy.


Fred
 
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