Triple Quench/Triple Temper

etp777

etp777

Joined
Aug 12, 2002
Messages
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OK, I have all kinds of questions today, so will try to keep them segregated into threads. and if you can just point me to good tutorials to answer them,t hat'll work too. I have tried to check all the tutorials I have bookmarked before I asked any of these questions though.


OK, I've been using a triple temper on my blades so far, and it seems to work alright. But I have also seen mentioned a triple quench and then triple temper. I don't quite get how this works. Do you do a quench, a temper, a quench, temper, etc? Or do you quench and let cool three times, then temper three times. The problem I see with the second method would be that you ahve the blade in the fragile/unstable quenched state throught hose three steps, so it seems likely that you might drop blade or something and lose allt aht work. Not sure. Anyways, any tips on this would be greatly appreciated. Also, since it is related, if anyone out there uses the Goddard Goop quench, what exactly do you use? I have some ATF, a big can of crisco(or rather, the generic kind from walmart) and about a gallon of leftover wax from old candles and stuff. I was going to melt this all together and put it in a cake pan, as he suggests in $50 knife shop, but I was wondering if anyone had suggestions on ratios of the fat to the wax to the atf or oil.
 
i believe its quench - quench - quench - temper - temper - temper.

just dont drop it before the temper. :)

is there any real noticed benefit to the triple quench?
 
Yes it's three thermal cycles, then three quenches and then three tempers.

Really this sequence has only been shown to benefit steels like 5160 and 52100, steels that have a good bit of chromium in them. Ed Fowler and others have tested this process exhaustively and it does seem to improve these steels quite a lot. I've done this a couple of times myself but it is time consuming because ideally the steel should cool to room temperature between thermal cycles, cool overnight in the oil between quenches and cool to room temperature between the tempering cycles. That's at about 4 days for the heat treat.

The general opinion though is that multiple quenches on other simple high carbon steels like 1084, 1095, L6 etc. is a waste of time, but if you want to experiment the field is wide open!

I also want to add that while the multiple quenches are not necessary, the multiple thermal cycles and tempering cycles do matter!
 
Well, guess I won't be doing the triple quench then. That'll save me some time.

Not quite sure what you mean by the thermal cycles. Are we just talking about normalizing or annealing here? (and if so, which one, as I just recently learned the correct definition of each, and that I was normalizing for a while and calling it annealing. Though it did soften the steel somewhat).

But until I move out of the land of O1, 1084 and 1095, won't worry about the multiple quenches.
 
I use the Goop quench and I swear by it. It is nice because it solidifies between uses and you can accidently knock it over.

Mine is 40% canning paraffin, 40% store bought lard, and 20% cheap ATF. I throw in a little more ATF, wax, or lard when the level drops a bit. I keep it in a stainless steel drywall trough.

Before I use it, I have a scrap of steel that I heat up a good orange color and quench it in the goop...this almost always brings my quenchant up to 140F.
 
Thanks xrayed. Just on way out door to pick up a cheap saucepan and old metal cake pan(with lid) to melt this stuff together and keep it in, respectively. Now that I know rough proportions, will be easier. Figured i didn't want mix of ATf, wax and shortening cooking in one of my regular pans though. :)
 
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