W1 Forge Heat Treat?

T

Themilkman

Joined
Dec 1, 2014
Messages
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Quick question for you guys. I just bought some w1 rod to make integrals out of, but I do not have a heat treat oven. Can it be heat treated by eye in a forge, to at least be hardened to a degree until I eventually invest in an oven? I understand that W1 normally is best hardened with a soak time at around 1500 degrees +/-, but can I get away with doing this in my forge like I would for my usual 1084 blades?

Thanks
 
Yes, it works pretty good in a forge. Heat to non-magnetic and then a full shade red brighter.
 
I'm new to the forum but I have been blacksmithing for over thirty years. I do ALL my heat treat and tempering on my coal fired forge. I use primarily 1095 and 5160. I water quench, then draw to a peacock blue over a low fire
 
Welcome darkhammer.

Blacksmiths use a water quench more than most bladesmiths do. Tempering is also usually done by bladesmiths in a more controlled method, but you obviously have developed a system that works for you.
 
Moderator? Did I break a rule? I learned water quench when I was in high school. I've only been making knives since '90. I've always used water quench and tempering on the forge. I use color as a guide, but also magnets. The Japanese sword makers of today use water quench, one of the key things the author of "Craft of the Japanese Sword" said was never make the edge less than a 1/10 of an inch.
 
Darkhammersmithy said:
Moderator? Did I break a rule? I learned water quench when I was in high school. I've only been making knives since '90. I've always used water quench and tempering on the forge. I use color as a guide, but also magnets. The Japanese sword makers of today use water quench, one of the key things the author of "Craft of the Japanese Sword" said was never make the edge less than a 1/10 of an inch.
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You didn’t break any rules, I think Stacy was just pointing out some of the differences between some who started as a blacksmith versus what the typical bladesmith might do, neither way is inherently right or wrong as long as they are done well, I’ve forged tempered swords before which would be similar to tempering over coals and if your careful it works, some people like a more hands off approach with a oven and neither is wrong. A oven does open up options like working with stainless that are much less feasible with a forge/coal forge setup. Water quenches can be fun and are always exciting, recently forged out a Hwando sword following parameters from a recent forged in fire episode for fun and looks great and got it coated up for a water quench and got a dreaded warp followed by a ping even doing what normally I could do with a smaller blade to survive a water quench, you won’t some and you lose some I suppose. The best part was the hamon looked very promising on the fragments of the blade and after it cracked I was able to straight the warp in seconds. Now to figure out how to put all those straight pieces back together haha. Anyway welcome to the forum.
 
I wasn't referring to the comment. I just saw "moderator" and wondered if I had inadvertently broken a rule. I actually don't use a coating. I just leave the edge thick. The KEY for me is to temper to a peacock blue immediately. The first one is critical. After that I do two more tempering cycles. But you can wait after the first one if you want. I sometimes do two and finish the blade, then do the final one and leave the blade blue. If the first tempering cycle isn't done within a few hours at most, you can have a spiderweb of stress cracks.
 
Darkhammersmithy said:
I wasn't referring to the comment. I just saw "moderator" and wondered if I had inadvertently broken a rule. I actually don't use a coating. I just leave the edge thick. The KEY for me is to temper to a peacock blue immediately. The first one is critical. After that I do two more tempering cycles. But you can wait after the first one if you want. I sometimes do two and finish the blade, then do the final one and leave the blade blue. If the first tempering cycle isn't done within a few hours at most, you can have a spiderweb of stress cracks.
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Have you posted any pics of your work? I would like to see some of your blades.
 
No rules broken Darkhammer.. I was doing what Joshua pointed out and noting that few bladesmiths here in Shop Talk use your methods. Your methods work for you and that is perfectly fine. We love photos here. so feel free to post photos of your blades and your forge setup.

Sorry, didn't mean to scare you :). I am the moderator of Shop Talk, but also have made knives and swords for 60 years. I post frequently here, so no one pays much attention to the Moderator in my avatar. The Ilmarinen is a name that was put on me by a friend. Ilmarinen is a Nordic folk hero who could forge anything. He forged a machine that would take in common raw materials and produce anything you wanted. The story is in the Kalevala edo.

FWIW, Japanese swords are not made from 1095 and 5160, and the tamahagane they use in "Craft of the Japanese Sword" behaves different in a water quench than those steels. Yaki-ire is a skill that takes practice and broken blades are frequent in learning. The Japanese do temper swords much higher than we use for knives in the west. An old saying translates roughly as , "A bent sword will still kill, a broken sword will get you killed."

Your "peacock blue" temper is much higher than most of the folks here normally use on a knife or sword blade. That would be equivalent to a 500-550°F /260-280°C temper. We generally temper blades in the straw color range around 400°F/200°C. The range you temper to is what we use for backsprings on folders. Most knifemakers use a HT regime with closely controlled temperatures to assure a probable range of final hardness. They usually test with a hardness tester or test files/chisels.

Again, nothing wrong with what you do, just different from the metallurgical methods that have become popular in modern bladesmithing. We have many folks here who use various methods and regularly post about how they do things. No one barred from having a different approach.

There is an excellent book, written by a metallurgist who posts here in Shop talk, titled "Knife Engineering - Steel, Heat Treating, and Geometry". It is by Larrin Thomas, son of Devin Thomas. It is well worth the read, and has invaluable charts, graphs, and HT regimes for most every knife steel. He also has great website called Knife Steel Nerds with hundreds of articles on the research he has done - https://knifesteelnerds.com/
 
Ok. I used to go to Fantasy Forum, one time I posted a link to my website, (I don't use it anymore and haven't updated it for years) for someone who asked about pics and almost got banned because I didn't know it was against their rules.
When I was in high school we made a chisel, I think it was W1 we used but it was a long time ago, and we used a gas forge and water quench. Mine worked on the first try so I didn't learn much; you can learn a lot from your failures.
My first forge was a car brake drum with a hand crank blower I found in a junk shop. Currently I use a 1906 coal fired forge and my grandfather's anvil. I use a leaf blower attached to a lamp dimmer switch to control the draft.
Actually our instructor in high school said peacock blue was about 660° F.
I don't have a lot of pics but I have a YouTube channel; K R Knfmkr, if you want to see how I do things.
 
I realize tamahagane is different from 1095, however the methods used, combined with the carbon contents described, suggests an equivalent of .90-1.25% carbon after folding and carbon migration, which would be quite high at welding temperatures. None the less, I learned a great deal from that book, as well as Jim Hrisoulas's "the Complete Bladesmith".
 
Both good books.

1095 has more in it than just .95% carbon. The manganese and the other alloying make it far more susceptible to cracking in a water/brine quench. As you noted, getting it tempered immediately is very important, as it can self destruct in minutes after a water quench.5160 has .60% carbon, but has 1% chromium, as well as other alloying. It can be quite prone to damage in a water quench. Part of these issues are made less severe in the very high temper. The hardness drops to the mid Rc50's at 600+°F. Most bladesmiths shoot for blades in the upper 50's to low 60's. 5160 with a 600+ temper should be in the low Rc50's.\

Again, I am not telling you your method is wrong or that you should change it. Just noting what is the most common method here.

I remember my old brake drum forge back in the late 1960's. It was a fun thing to make knives in.
 
Well, part of it is in the beginning and to a lesser extent still, my primary customers were SCA. They appreciate the traditional methods. But mainly I like my methods and I know they work. In the beginning I did break a fair amount of blades, but seldom anymore.
 
No, the coal guys are mixed in with the propane guys. Places like iforgeiron.com and other blacksmith sites usually have a knife area that is frequented by the coal folks.
 
Would it be ok if I started a thread? Something along the lines of "Coal fired forges, who's with me?" I was thinking of finding out a rough idea of how many guys use coal, and if others do all of their heat treat on the forge
 
Sure. There are plenty of coal guys here. If it gets a lot of traction, I'll sticky the thread for a while.
 
Would this be the area? I guess it does fit into shop talk. Hmm, thanks for your response. I just didn't know if you had to be a certain level member to start a thread
 
Nope, anyone can start a thread.
Shop Talk would be the right place. Originally, Hammer and Tongs was supposed to be for things like forging, but it became the place where threads go to die. Post it here in Shop Talk and it will get plenty of views and posts.
 
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