The Great Heat Treat Experience

[Burchtree]

Spent yesterday afternoon doing my first heat treating and tempering.

Used a fish cooker, a magnet, and a pan of motor oil.

I heated the blade in the flame until the magnet wouldn't stick to it anymore. I didn't see the "shadow" that everyone talks about, so I hope I did it right.

Once that was done I dipped the edge into the motor oil for a bit, then sunk the whole blade in for a while. After that I tempered it in the oven a few times.

I sharpened it up and chopped on a treated 2x4 for awhile and it still remained sharp without any damage to the blade. Next I took a swing at a 16-penny nail. It put a slice in the nail, but also a little dent in the blade. Is this normal, or did I not get it hard enough? The blade is a 9-inch fighter.

Any suggestions? Did I do it right?

While I was jacking around I annealed a file and made a pretty nice neck knife. I also heat treated it. The problem is that the files where made in China and guess what's stamped right on the blade?

 

[Burchtree]

By the way, should I try to use saltwater next time? Does it work better than oil?

 

[Chuck Gedraitis Knives]

What type of steel did you make the first knife out of?
Stick with the oil, saltwater will probally crack your blade upon quench. Also make sure the oil is warm, around 125 deg or the cold oil cam form a vapor cloud around the blade and insulate it, keeping it from hardening. Next time after you quench, but before you temper try running a fine file along the blade's edge. If the file skates off then the blade has hardened correctly, if not then something didn't work out right and you should do it again. I don't think that trying to cut a nail off is a good test, since you can and did chip your blade. Try cutting up cardboard into slices, or to test for sharpness try cutting up rolling paper.

The files made in china are not very good files or good for blades. The ones that say simmonds or made in usa are much better.

 

[Raymond Richard]

Your question about using salt water pretty much depends on the steel your using. A salt brine is used pretty much when everything else fails. I'm not saying its a last resort but there's lots of steels out there that just don't do well in water or a brine. These quenches are normally to fast and will crack most steels if not right away, then just a few minutes later.

He who chops nails fails. Not a good idea as far as I'm concerned......Ray

 

[Matt Shade]

Sounds pretty good. I use motor oil to quench O1, and have been happy with the results. I don't know what kind of steel your using. Some steels work better with a faster quench, some don't. It sounds like the blade hardened so I wouldn't worry about that too much.
You can do a file test right after the quench. Just try to file all the way down the cutting edge. It should skate with a sort of glassy feel to it instead of biting in. If the file won't skate over the whole edge, I just heat the blade again and quench it a second time. This seems to work pretty well. I haven't had any blades break on me yet (knock on wood)
I'd be more concerned with the knife's performance on the 2X4 (which sounded good) than on the nail. Some nails are hardened, and chopping at it you can never tell what angle your hitting at etc.

 

[Burchtree]

Thanks for the replies, I'm pretty happy with the results. The steel is 1095. The nail-cutting experience wasn't the brightest idea I ever came up with.

I just let it pretty much fall on a layed-over nail and it cut into it, but did put a barely noticeable ding in it. Once I slap some handles onto the fighter, I'll post some pictures is you all don't mind.

Stiper28 -- I drilled out the "China" mark on the neck knife. I wasn't going for high performance on it, and it actually turned out pretty nice looking with a razor edge. (I'm sure the steel does suck though). I put on some "plastic" handles I stole off an old broken Boker and I will never try that again. Melted plastic all over the place -- it took me awhile to get it looking good.