What is this?! Post heat treat

jwesthurl

jwesthurl

Joined
Sep 17, 2013
Messages
430
I heat treated this .125 1084 blade last night. I coated the spine with furnace cement the day before to attempt a hamon/quench line. My oven was at 1500 - I heated the blade and checked for non-magnetic and then waited another 1-2 minutes and quenched. After quench these divots(?) appeared right on the line of the cement. What happened? Is this decarb that I need to get through? Did I overheat it? Any help would be appreciated.

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When using an oven, it's fairly important to coat the blade with one of many types of anti-scale compound. This keeps the steel protected from the atmosphere of the oven that is just looking for something to "eat"!
And it ate your steel - or burned it.
One of many reasons to leave enough blade material to grind after heat treating to remove all imperfections and get down past any layers of de-carb.
 
I left a fair amount of material. Can I get down past this or did I ruin it? If I can get past it will the steel still be ok?
I'm curious of why that happened only where the cement met the steel.
 
The furnace cement that I have is water based. You might have some corrosion from the moisture meeting the air interface. Clean a piece of scrap and put some cement on it overnight and check it out. Your 1084 should have hardened all the way through. The steel should be fine. Clean it up and check to see if you have a hamon.
 
I did leave it on the blade overnight and I didn't notice any corrosion but that doesn't mean it wasn't there. I cleaned it up and got past the pits in the blade. Now for the hamon...
 
Those are just remnants of the clay coating. They sand right off. Your hamon line will be somewhere slightly above the clay line.
 
I agree with Shane....sand that down and the hamon is likely right there. I call what you have the "clay-line ridge". It seems to happen right along the clay edge. That is one reason why the whole blade needs a thin wash layer of clay first, and then the slightly thicker layer on the spine area.
 
I wasnt aware 1084 could take much of a hamon. may have to try it out next time! cant wait to see how it turns out.

BTW nice to see another maker close to florissant!
 
Thank you guys. I was able to grind down past it. Stacy, I will be using a thin coat when I try next time.

My understanding (which is limited, lol) is that 1084 will not have as much activity.
 
redd1981 said:
I wasnt aware 1084 could take much of a hamon. may have to try it out next time! cant wait to see how it turns out.

BTW nice to see another maker close to florissant!
Click to expand...

You can definitely get a hamon from 1084. You don't get nearly the activity from it than you would with w2 or 1095.


 
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