Tempering mild steel and making a bowie

R

rmc

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Sep 1, 2003
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Hi! I made a dagger out of a ~ .5/10/1 inch piece of mild steel lying around. I ground a decent angle on it (the angles don't intersect, though). I got my dad to weld on two pieces of the same scrap (each about .5/1/3") for a guard (he builds trailers for his sailboats for fun...). After some more grinding, sanding, etc. it's a pretty decent "rough" knife. Not the best edge, but great for chopping at things. Anyway, how would I/should I go about tempering this?

Also, I'm wondering how hard it would be to make a decent bowie knife that worked. Not a bowie-shaped knife but a knife that could chop wood, whittle, or anything.

Thanks,

Ryan
 
Does a magenet attract the steel?? Some steels can not be hardened or hardened enough for our purposes.

RL
 
Well, okay. It can be tempered but tempering is only a part of heat treating the steel. If not stainless take a spare piece of the same stock and heat it with a propane tourch. Check periodically with a magnet until the steel becomes non-magnetic. At that point quench the test piece in warm oil, such as vegitable oil. Put the test piece in a pre-heated 400 degree F. oven for an hour (THIS part is the TEMPER). After the test piece has cooled to room temperature test it by draw filing it with a three cornered (triangle) file. If it don't cut but ruins the file instead you did it. For the actual blade, temper it twice for an hour per temper - temper, cool, temper again. Remember, the 400 F. oven is the temper part of this.

There is a whole lot more detail to be learned but the above is a basic start for the type steel you may have.

Roger
 
You should first do some reading of books or on the internet about knife making and heat treating of steel.
 
You could. What you need to do first is heat treat a sample piece of your steel. A higher tempering temperature (but not above 500 F.) on simple carbon steels will lesson its hardness. Do not not exceed 500 F. on an unknown tool or simple carbon steel. That will cause brittleness. If its color is blue or purple after removing from the tempering oven its brittle if its not a high alloy steel.

Do your test piece at 400 F.. If its hard as rocks temper at 450 or 475 maximum for a large chopping knife. That will give you more toughness. BUT you still don't know what type steel you have. So all this that has been said might be useless.

RL
 
Mete is the one you should listen to the most. Take what ever advise he offers and be happy he thought well enough to offer it. You will do well by listening to him. I have.

RL
 
"Mild" low carbon steel can not tempered. It does not have enough carbon to form usefully hard martensite.
 
Yes, but it sounds from his original post he has no real idea what he does have and a simple propane and oven test would show him something.

RL
 
Ryan, you could just use the old "quench and break" test. Take a sample piece of your steel, heat it to nonmagnetic with a propane torch (or whatever heat source you have), and dunk it in a bucket of warm water. Put it in a vice with an inch or so sticking out, and whack it with a hammer (be sure you wear safety glasses, a full face shield is even better). It will break like glass if it has enough carbon in it to be serviceable. If it breaks, it'll probably make a decent knife. If it does get hard enough to break, follow Roger's instructions to work out the proper tempering temperature. By the way, if your sample piece gets hard enough to break with the water quench, I'd try another piece and quench it in a thin oil such as ATF, hydraulic fluid, or canola oil.
 
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