Water quenching?

Water will give some very good hamon activity but like said, it's very risky. The longer the blade, the more risk. Short blades are pretty easy in water.
 
In the metallurgy section of Bladesmith Forum, in a recent quench oil thread, Scott McKenzie from Houghton International talks about canola oil. He recommended it over other non-commercial oil quenchants like mineral, olive, ATF, etc.

Houghton also makes a vegetable oil based quench oil... Bio-quench 600 or 6000 or something like... that is supposed to be very close to the speed of water without many of water's problems. There is some discussion of it here... http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?t=53085

I was wondering if any one here has tried it or knows anyone who has?

Mike
 
When i'm oil quenching I use canola currently, but I like water quenching and knowing that i'm fully hardened when I want it to be. A brine quench is a faster quench, but "less harsh" for the steel in terms of warping and the ping of death. The sodium disrupts the vapor jacket and you get a much more even quench, it being the vapor jacket that causes most of the warping and breaking in the first place.
 
Might that be the answer, then? Dump some salt in my quenchant?

It's a small blade, about 3" sharpened mated with a 4" blade, but I'd like to run it in the low 60s HRC.
 
Justin.Mercier said:
When i'm oil quenching I use canola currently, but I like water quenching and knowing that i'm fully hardened when I want it to be. A brine quench is a faster quench, but "less harsh" for the steel in terms of warping and the ping of death. The sodium disrupts the vapor jacket and you get a much more even quench, it being the vapor jacket that causes most of the warping and breaking in the first place.
Click to expand...

Wow, so I can get the benefits of water with less chance of a ping by using brine? Awesome, gotta mix up some brine now.:)
 
I've certainly had less ping using brine instead of just water, and i've DEFINATELY had much less warping. I havent done enough blades total to know for sure if the ping problem is truly less, my sample size is small, but for avoiding warping, there's no question that brine is far superior.
 
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