Tapatalk posting threads in wrong forum?

[Omega Leather Works]

Ignore the title. This is another misplaced thread courtesy of Tapatalk.

Since people are looking anyway, I may as well ask a question.

When heat treating a knife with a clay coating, and not heat treating the tang, is the soft steel of the tang/ricasso a problem in terms of strength? If the steel is soft (annealed) it wouldn't be very tough either, right?

When heat treating a blade, but the tang only gets incidental heat (could be red hot, but not as hot as prescribed for hardening), does it still harden to a lesser degree?

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

The tang isn't usually a problem if it isn't fully heated. The ricasso may show a different look than the HTed blade. Strength wise, martensite is stronger than pearlite, and thus it may bend easier if not fully hardened. Again, that isn't a problem in the tang, but could be a problem in the ricasso.

I would question the HT method that would not heat the tang and ricasso area on a clay coated blade. Evenness of heat is very important in that type of HT.

Partial heating does not equal partial hardening. If the steel austenitized at 1350F or higher, it will harden...if it did not get that hot, it will not harden....it is that simple.



Tell us a bit about your planned HT.


BTW, if taptalk is not working for you...don't use it

 

[Omega Leather Works]

Ha, yeah it isn't, and I won't. I hope I won't anyway.

Alright... Thanks for the answer Stacy. It's pretty much what I figured.

So the knife was already heat treated before I tapered the tang. Steel is (was) 5/32 1084. I say "was" because in tapering, the ricasso met the distal and voila, the entire blade is thinned. It wasn't by accident of course. I wanted 1/8" to begin with and it's closer to that now.

When I heat treated it I had clay over the top half of the blade and over the spine, into the ricasso. This separated the blade from the tang. The majority of the knife was in the heat, but half of the tang stuck out the back port. From what I can tell using fc and a file, only the edge and part of the ricasso hardened. The tang didn't at all.

This knife is light duty by design, so ultimate strength is not of great importance. However, being so thin with the taper, I'm a little worried about it. I'm certain that I could easily fold the thing (even without my insane pythons of course). So! I believe that I'll go ahead with heat treating it again. The only thing that gives me pause is the same thing that I worried about the first time. The edge is very thin. Not only that, but the point is extremely acute and needle like. I already know from the last cycle that the point will get to heat extremely quickly. I'm trying to figure out a way to apply more heat to the spine and let it heat toward the edge, but I'm failing. I have yet to try a muffle, so maybe that holds the key.

Or... I may just handle the thing already and call it good. I'm not an abuser of knives. I like to slice with them and I'm nearly positive that the annealed steel won't be an issue. Of course if I were giving it away I'd worry more, but this is my "first" (I've made klo's in the distant past) knife and therefore I'll be keeping this one.

What would you do?

Edit- oh also, the scales will be very thin and lithe as well, and won't be of a super rugged construction. I'm just doing it the way I want on this one. The next knife will be made using more conventional construct.