Vertical or horizontal quench.

Mark Williams

Mark Williams

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Which do you practice. I use both methods. I usually make the choice depending on the size of the blade. How about you guys?

Pro's and Con's?
 
Well, I use verticle since thats the only quench tank I have. I'll need to get a bigger quench tank soon. What sort of verticle large volume tank do you recomend? Turkey fryer pot?
 
Some of the nicest tanks I've found were at a local gun show. The large ammo cans are sealable and tough enough to get heated up on the turkey fryer. I need to go down to the army surplus store and get one a wee bit longer. One of these days when I get settled, I plan to make up two permanantly installed heated recirculation tanks. One with fast oil, one with slower oil.
 
I got all the fixin's to make a pid-controlled heated recirculating tank, but too dang busy at this time to do it! Still, over in Concord is the plant that produces the Pitco Fry-a-lator french fryer. I should hop on over there and see if I can score a defective unit or something.

Horizontal or vertical quench? Depends on the knife and how I am HT-ing it. A long tanto blade that I want to have a nice hamon on gets a horizontal quench. Most other blades get a point-down, fast and complete submersion in Higgy's Secret Quenching Sauce. :rolleyes:
 
I use a valve cover from a 350 Chevy racing engine. It doesn't have any holes in the side I'm using. It's about 4" deep.
 
Mark Williams said:
Which do you practice. I use both methods. I usually make the choice depending on the size of the blade. How about you guys?

Pro's and Con's?
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Mark my experience has shown me that this question is determined by the shape of the blade, and of course the quenching medium. Obviously double edged blades need to be vertically quenched so that one is sorted out right away, bowies and other wide single edged blades seem to handle both vertical and horizontal as long as there is not a great disparity between the spine and the edge thickness. But some ornery cross sections where the profile is fairly simple, the blade is long and the spine is thick compared to the edge, like a dirk, a narrow chefs knife, or traditional tanto need a particular quench direction in oil to avoid the dreaded reverse curve. I have personally found (results may vary) that a vertical quench is the worst for these, and have been able to compensate quite well with a horizontal spine down quench (important- this is without the Japanese clay thing, that clay changes all the parameters, I have been misquoted enough by folks that assume every quench includes clay coating).

Of course anything that can be marquenched/martempered in my shop is done vertically.
 
Speaking of quench

Have any of you guys had the chance to try some of the "quenchall" from McMaster carr?
I tried like heck to get some from heatbath. Way too many problems unless you can just pick it up from them.
 
For me, vertical, point down. All my blades are smaller than 4", all clay coated.
 
I do mine vertically. I picked these babies up at the gunshow last w/e. Mortar shell containers. :D
Scott
 
when I do mine I have been using an old coffee maker for vertical I start it off by dunking in hot pieces then when its up there I plug it in. It is oone of the old tall cylynder types for banquets and such.

Abe
 
Mass'a Wilyums-

I like'a me to use da both up-a-down and'a sideways ;)

This is my main horizontal here. It holds 15 gallons of Heatbath's Park #50. :D

The utility box (switch) and orange chord are for powering up a water heater element. The top of the element is hidden under the box, next to the switch. There's also a drain plug on the other end. 15 gallons of oil is HEAVY... plus this is almost 3/8" wall pipe (beggers can't be choosers ;)) so the tank itself is heavy!

My Dad made the cart for me to roll it around the shop on. And since I'm a neat-freak I painted it all up :)

quenchtank5sy.jpg


-Nick-
 
That's the same one I have Scott. I like mine a lot. Nice size, and seals up for transport.

Nice set-up Nicholas. Doesnt look like 15 gallons does it ?

Got in 5 gallons of the "quenchall" from McMaster-Carr. Overnight delivery is purty cool. I'll try the stuff on some O-1 this w/e and do some testing.
 
Mark when I saw them I knew they would work good. The guy has a tractor trailer load of ammo cans in all sizes. :eek: I paid $18.00 for three. How much did the quenchall set you back?
Scott
 
Scott,

It was $107 and some change for 5 gallons fast and 5 gallons general purpose oil shipped. The fast oil is on backorder :(
 
Mark Williams said:
That's the same one I have Scott. I like mine a lot. Nice size, and seals up for transport.

Nice set-up Nicholas. Doesnt look like 15 gallons does it ?

Got in 5 gallons of the "quenchall" from McMaster-Carr. Overnight delivery is purty cool. I'll try the stuff on some O-1 this w/e and do some testing.
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Hey Mark, actually in person it does. Most people that come here take one look at it and ask me why in the hell I have such a big quench tank- It's 12" diam. pipe and about 3' long.

I am looking forward to hearing what you think of the new oil. I weaseled my way into Heatbath's product, but they were real butts right up until the last lady I talked to.

BTW- Aren't Massa's supposed to concoct their own heat-treating brew??? :p :D

-Nick-
 
Mark,

When you got the "Quenchall" from McMaster-Carr, did it have quench charts or curves and cooling time data? When I got in touch with them about that, they told me the information wasn't available.

Mike Krall
 
Nothing but the MSDS sheets came with the general purpose oil, and zilch with the fast oil. If you go to the McMaster Carr websire, You can see the MSDS sheets for it .It has the name of the company listed in the sheet.

The slower oil hardened up a thin cross section of O-1 just fine, but then again O-1 in thin cross section is almost hardened just from air cooling. I need to get over to my friends house to check the RC value. The GP oil has very little smell and is a light brown liquid. Smoked pretty bad.

Hopefully I'll get the chance to play with the fast oil this w/e on a thicker section of W-2 to see how it does. The faster oil looks and smells like used motor oil . YUK!! We'll see how sometime soon how it does. I figure some fairly thick 3/16 W-2 should be a decent test.
 
Wow I finally feel vindicated! I do it in part like Kevin - double edged blades vertically. Nick would love my vertical quench tank: It's a paper milk carton. I don't use that one in the house!

Everything else gets edge quenched in a turkey baster on a hot plate. One thing I didn't expect with the electric oven though, is that the tang now gets hardened too, even if it's not quenched. I never had to worry about that when I was heating in the propane forge, cause the tang was farther from the heat source and didn't come to critical. I'm having to adjust my methods a little.

Nick you are my hero! I want a quench tank just like yours. ;)
 
Mark Williams said:
If you go to the McMaster Carr websire, You can see the MSDS sheets for it .It has the name of the company listed in the sheet.QUOTE]

Thanks a lot, Mark. I'll see if I can track down the cooling curves, etc. directly with the company. I'll post if I find anything.

Mike Krall
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