What’s missing?

dirtyphil

dirtyphil

Joined
Mar 19, 2014
Messages
165
I am addicted to YouTube knife making videos, probably seen them all twice! I see a lot of cool knives made on there any by kids with a tenth the equipment as me but bury any design I’ve had. See a lot using 1095 steel. Which brings me to my question; what are they really missing out on by doing the non-magnetic now quench, backyard heat treat? For example, a guy heat treats his 1095 knife with a homemade forge. Gets to non magnetic and quickly quenches...file skates across the blade. From what I’ve heard this isn’t an adequate heat treat. So what properties of this steel is he missing out on? I wish I could comment on them all to send out for proper heat treat cuz I see some quality sh*t being ground at times.
 
The hold for hyper-eutectoid steels is to allow the excess carbon to be distributed. When you just hit non-magnetic and quench 1095, you basically get 1084 with some extra carbon floating around in various forms. There will likely be retained austenite and perhaps some pearlite. Sure, it will skate a file, but so will a soda bottle and a rock. Neither of those makes good knives.
 
Adding to what Stacy said... As I understand it, some of that excess carbon could end up in grain boundaries, creating pathways made of the most brittle stuff around.

Can you make a decent knife with a backyard heat treat? Yes. As long as your expectations do not exceed your limitations. In other words, spouting off about how great your L6, 52100, or O1 blade is seems a bit like driving around in a Lamborghini with only 8 of 12 cylinders firing. You would have been better off using those sparkplugs in a V8 Mustang(aka 1084).
 
To maybe bring some insight to what you are seeing: there are a couple of steels that for whatever reason are known to the general public. 1095, O1, and D2 are some examples of this. Because they are fairly well known and frequently show up in YouTube videos, they are often what new makers associate with a good starter steel. There are, however, better options. 80crv2 and 1084 are not only very good steels, they are more forgiving in heat treat than the three I mentioned earlier. They can be heat treated in a simple 2 brick forge, without extended soak times. More importantly, unlike 1095, they can reach their full potential ( or close to it) with a home heat treat process. As mentioned above, even though you can harden 1095 in a backyard setup, the unutilized carbon can lesson performance. In a simple two brick forge setup, the 1084 blade will likely outperorm the 1095 blade. In the immortal words of Public Enemy, " don't believe the hype".
 
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