Un Heat Treated 1084 bolster

L

letorthopper

Joined
Feb 10, 2015
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I was planning to make a bolster out of 1084 for a chefs knife made from A2. I'm sending out the A2 for heat treat.

How badly with that 1084 scratch in its annealed state. Is it crazy not to heat treat it? Would I be able to get it harder with a torch and simple quench (just spitballing out of curiosity on that one). Whats the 'normal' course of action for this type of thing. Do you guys just always use the same steel for both? The remaining A2 wasn't thick enough for what I was going for. I haven't used a bolster for any of my past projects. Any other options/issues I'm not thinking of? Thanks!
 
Ive done a few bolsters from .2" 1084. They seam to hold up ok but if you have a way of treating them I would. If I dont have stainless Ill hardened a few pieces of 1084 next time.
 
I would do it with a torch, Think about it like this, there is no way you can make the steel softer and less scratch resistant
 
Lot of soft SS & NS bolsters out there. So it would work as good or better un-HTed. But it is so easy to HT, why not?
 
Thanks guys. I did wonder if it couldn't get any worse by an attempted heat treating so it's good to know that it won't. I've never tried to heat treat anything. This could be a nice way to wade into it without loosing too much valuable material if takes a turn towards the catastrophic.
 
If you over heat it you could get grain growth which could cause brittle bolsters (how bad is that really?). So I'd stay on the low end of heat. If you do over heat, just thermal cycle them and try again.
 
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