Two kitchen knives of 26C3 steel

Tom Lewis

Tom Lewis

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Feb 24, 2000
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This steel is very easy to work with. To heat treat, 1475 for ten min. quench in Parks 50, temper at 400 degrees for two hours twice. RC hardness of 64.
I made two knives like this for my Wife. They are her favorite. She has used them quite a lot and they are still sharp.
The hamon was quick and easy. Rutlands cement, after a quick sanding to 800 grit, dipped in FeCl for 20 seconds, took out and scrubbed with 4 ott steel wool. Did that five times. Then sprayed with windex to neutralize. Then used 1500 silicon carbide mixed with oil and some Flitz. Scrubbed each side for maybe 30 seconds. For a kitchen knife I am not going to spend a lot of time bringing out the hamon.
 
They look great! Nice work! Did you have warping issues? I'm struggling to straighten out the blades I'm working on now. I'm trying the "clamp past straight and temper" method, but they just aren't straighting like I would expect.
 
The shorter blade is 8 1/2" overall. I have made several of these with no warping problems. The longer blade is 13 1/2" long and it did warp coming out of the quench. I was able to get it pretty straight before it cooled off too much. I finished straightening it by on the second temper taking it out of the oven at 400 degrees and quickly clamping it in a clamping jig on a vice. I found I really had to almost over clamp it to get it to come out straight. The heat treat was before grinding. When I ground the large blade it got a very slight warp.
All this was stock removal. Normalizing might help the warping.
I would be interested in how other have handled the warping problems.
 
Use do a foil wrapped subcritcal stress relief/"anneal" at like 1200-1250F for an hour.
 
I have been straightening straight out of quench, before it cools down too much, as mentioned. Ordered material for a clamping jig, will be trying that also.
 
Yeah it's been a nightmare. When I get my forge back up and running I'm gonna do some normalizing and det anneal to see if it helps
 
I had problems with warping on my forged silver steel which is very same as this steel but with 1.17 carbon until I used Kevin cashens post HT routine
After forging 1600 and let cool
1475 to cool
1475 and quench
1275 for 2 hours and it's annealed and when finished grinding it's ready to quench
Haven't had a warp since and my knives are full tang integrals forged by hand,the warpiest of warpy styles with the way the blade and tang can warp on top of your regular blade warps
 
I got a funky gray coating that was kind of stubborn when I didn’t use foil. Not sure what that is. With foil I just get the colored oxides.
shqxk said:
Why foil wrap at that temp range since 1250F won't cause any decarburization.
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Volkert Forge said:
So far I have rough ground 2 blades and my first blank wraped on me pre heat treat also :mad:. I have them clayed up and ready to heat treat. I plan to heat treat them today I pray all goes straight:)
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Brass hammer and tap tap straight. Most stock annealed stuff will move around. Use sharp belts and try to be light handed.
-Trey
 
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