Would this work for heat treating knives?

Trauma said:
I found this listing for a kiln in my area. Would this work well for heat treating knives?

Thanks

https://sarasota.craigslist.org/art/d/bradenton-kiln-satellite-201-model/6896433924.html
Click to expand...

This is a kiln designed for working with glass. The temperature range is suitable for most high carbon steel. It would be a good starter oven for heat treating. The temperature range is good up to about 1900 degrees Fahrenheit. They do not indicate how closely it maintains the set temperature and if it allows too much variance, you might have to watch it closely. Compare the steel temperatures you will need to heat treat the the steels you will be using to the temperatures you can achieve with this oven. You want to compare the chamber size to the size of blades you want to harden. Ideally, you will want to put the blade into the oven and maintain equal distance from the elements in all directions to heat as evenly as possible.
 
Robwil - That is not a glass kiln, it is a burn-out kiln for burning out the flasks in lost wax casting. They are better than no kiln, buy very poor for knife HT.

It is analog and heats very slowly ( about an hour to reach 1500F). There is no temperature controller, so exact temperatures are nearly impossible.

It will work OK for doing HT on carbon blades, but the upper limit listed is not realistic. Also, the price is crazy. I usually see those old analog kilns at $100. For only a little more than the seller wants you could buy a knife HT oven with digital ramp soak programmer. Seriously, I wouldn't pay over $100 for it.

I used one for knife HT that I converted to digital control until I got a proper HT oven, but iyt was because I already had three burn=out ovens. I would not recommend buying one unless it was very cheap.
 
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