What am I doing wrong

[nikhintz]

Hello everyone, I'm fairly new to the knife making world, only two successful pieces thus far. Unfortunately, the last two attempts have both ended badly, with one being complete garbage, and the other usable, but not the way I wanted. The problem I am getting is cracks propagating perpendicular to the edge. Am I working the steel too cold, or not doing an adequate stress relief?

The setup I am using is a home cast masonry forge with a forced air propane burner, a standard issue craigslist aso, and a 4x36 belt sander.

The first failed attempt was with some old warplis tool steel I found while cleaning a garage, the second attempt was 0 1 that I actually had to pay for.

Any help or words of encouragement would be appreciated. As it stands right now, I am about to give up the forge and relegate myself to breathing the dust of stock removal. On the up side of that, the neighbors might think I am slightly less crazy

 

[richard j]

how thin are you taking the edges before you heat treat?

 

[LRB]

You might want to forget using 01 until you get some method of heat control for the heat treat. What is your quench? How did you go about the heat treat? What is warplis steel? 01 needs higher heat to forge than simple steels do. I would suggest starting over again with 1075/80/84. These steels are much more user friendly. In forging, and HT.

 

[Leu Custom]

almost sounds like the steel is TOO HOT when it's quenched. I did a few blades in 1095 with a 1 brick forge for fun and since there's no real way to judge temperature i must have quenched the blade when the blade was way too hot or just got it way too hot. Probably didn't help that i quenched in water either !

Playing with 01 a few years back is that I know if you use a torch to heat the edge and then quench, its very unlikely to get cracks as the heat is not as CRAZY as it would be in a forge.

 

[nikhintz]

It is nice to see an active forum, go to school for a few hours and a whole page of questions to answer when I get home. I have not gotten as far as the heat treat, I found the cracks when I did the initial cleanup from forging. As far as edge thickness, I was shooting for about 1/16 inch, but got a little thin on the 0 1 blade, which did not show nearly as deep a crack as the warplis.
The warplis is an oil hardening "non warping" tool steel, made by Pittsburgh tool steel wire co. Probably in the 60s or 70s (a guess), composition, in percentages, is.85-.95 carbon, 1-1.25 manganese, .15-.35 silicon, .4-.6 chromium, .4-.6 tungsten, and .15-.25 vanadium. According to the tempering curve on the package, its critical temp is 1440-1490F and untempered, its hardness is RC65 drawing down to RC60 at 450F. I have one 3.5 inch blade I made from it that has held up very well to two summers of field geology, and a year of professional cooking. It will peel a curl out of a dexter russel stainless blade without loosing its edge.