Heat Treating Knives, Blades etc

Hey guys, I'm a newbie, but Theo Rock Nazz is NOT. Check out this video I did of him when he was heat-treating a blade I've seen him craft for months. It's at night in his own forge in the snow, it's kind of badass but not as much as he. Watch him and the energy he puts into his art, listen to the commentary he gives:

I made my first blade out of 1084 today and I'm having some trouble tempering it. I'll explain what I did so that you have a good understanding. I use minimal equipment and do not have a digital oven. After the blade was forged I heated the blade in an LP forge, to an orange color and placed it in a container of vermiculite for several hours until it was cool. The blade was then rough ground. Once the blade was ready for heat treat, I heated the blade to an orange color and let it sit at that temperature for approximately ten minutes. The, I let it cool to room temperature. I then reheated the knife to an orange red color, soaked again for approximately ten minutes, a…

I am looking to heat treat 1050 spring steel. My end customer sent me specs. 320f for 20 min and air cooled. And then a second treat for 3 hours at 340+/- 20f. My question is the second treat should I anneal or air cool to get the most spring back in the steel?

I got my hands on some O1 tool steel, and I was planning to try forging a knife out of it. Now I've been browsing the forum for a while, and have read the stickies etc about heat treatment. I'm still wondering about a few things: - Forging takes place in bright red to yellow heat, which is above the critical point (non magnetic) as I understand (since critical point is a deep red). Does this mean grain size grows while forging? How bad is this? - Can grain size be reduced by annealing or normalizing? As I understand it, you heat up the steel to critical temp and then let it cool slowly in forge/sand/ashes/... or in the air. I've read in some sources this is hard …

Hey everyone, just got roughly 4-5 pounds of satanite and was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to use it. Never heard of the stuff till a while ago and it just arrived after a few months wait in a bulk buy with other people. Looking forward to trying it out so am after some tips to help keep the mistakes to a minimum. Won't be back for 2 weeks as am going to Tasmania for the holidays in another 2 sleeps. The steel I have at the moment is a few bars of 1095, 1084, 15n20, bit of 5160 and 52100 left as well as plenty of coil and leaf springs.

Okay I made a knife to be used as a skinner (posted in the forums a little while back). It was tested for hardness(several tests with in a 1/2" area. the results were from 69-72Rc. It was my under standing that 1095 would not exceed Mid 60's as quenched let alone after a temper is drawn.. How is this possible? Is my heat treat data incorrect? The test equipment was calibrated and I believe to be accurate. The knife was heated and then quenched in vegetable oil (about 100-110F), scuffed with a scotchbrite pad and then straight into a 425F oven for about 1hr 15mins. The blade was a medium-dark straw color, darkest on the edges and the tip area. I knew it was hard but I…

Hey ya'll! If you remember, I was really confused about why my previously annealed 5160 blade was not cooperating with me when I tried to drill some holes in it. Well, after annealing and learning a ton of awesome info from you guys, I got the holes drilled. I got a bigger problem this time I think though. Same blade, I sent it to Peter's heat treat cause it's a big boy blade and got it back this afternoon. For the very last step, I was making sure my bevels were very straight at the ricasso. However, I had a severe mishap. I cut into the blade much much further than I meant to. Like, way. I evened out to opposite side with the same amount of cut in, and it turn…

At what point (grit) do you guys stop polishing at before final tempering? I have been working on a little keltic style axe and think I went too far and wasted some time. I didnt plan on a perfect finish but I want a reflection on this one. I am at 600 grit now. Thanks

Hello knife experts. I have access to some industrial band saw blade material, which my "junkyard steel guide" says might be L6. btw i searched on L6 and the search engine on this site wouldn't let me search for that! i don't know why. Anyway, some sources call for a rather involved 6-7 step heat treat and temper process, holding specific temps for specific times. i have no equipment to do this. Can I just grind to shape and leave the hardening/tempering alone? this is reportedly a very tough steel with some air-hardening tendencies... thx for any help Mike

First time posting here. This is a great site and good resource. I had some questions about differential tempering. I see alot of people on this site talking about heating their steel in an oven at certain temps (dependant on what kind of steel it is) in order to temper them. Twice at 2 hours at a time at whatever temp is appropriate for their steel, seems to be standard. This should make the entire blade one temp. and thus not be differential tempered. At home Ive been tempering with a butane torch, running the colors from the spine to the edge. I'll do this twice, generally, and so far the results have been good. My edge retention is passable, I've been …

I have made my first knife from an old Royal bastard file. I cant get it sharp. I think its too hard but i dont know any help? Here it is next to my Ruko mines the not so good lookin one.

i have a splitting maul welded to a piece of pipe.its been annealed and i reclaimed the egde and then heated the first inch of the edge to what looked bright red, or until it wasnt attracted to a magnet, quenched in warm water and noticed the edge was not all that hard as a slight tap on a piece of soft steel was enough to dull but not chip the edge.would a quench in cold water make it harder or could it be to low in carbon to get much harder.im afraiad to quench again and have it crack.

this one would not oil harden. made from nondescript leaf spring, probably china. water hardened. went ping in 5 minutes. 3 times. next photo, same leaf spring, other side of centre hole. warm oil quench, hardened beautifully, torch tempered. excellent edge. same bunch of springs, different leaf. cold oil quench didn't harden, so used water. got this lesson twice, except this one split along the spine of the blade and perpendicular to the edge. lesson: warm oil for free springs that are of origins unknown for me

I have pored over home built heat treat oven plans from all over. 1st question: Can someone explain RAMP/SOAK and what might I need it for in the future. I ask because a PID controller with it runs about twice the price as one without it. Not sure I need it now, but may later on. Currently just starting to make file and rasp knives, leaf springs soon to come, then likely 1084. Down the road.....who knows... Thanks

I realize that I am probably in for a terrible experience here, but I am trying to tap a piece of damascus steel, and running into trouble. I have a knife with a damascus pommel, and the pommel was poorly ground and misshappen. I forged it into a more satisfying shape, with a piece of steel threaded into the existing hole as a handle. I expected to have to re-drill the hole for the tap (since the threaded handle obviously could not be removed), and that was not difficult. The problem arose with drilling into the base metal(s), as they seem too hard to drill. I havent even tried to tap it yet, as I'm sure it would break the tap. Is there a way to soften this metal enough…

I have found a couple of boxes of old planer blades and due to the slight thickness and width i thought they would make a great series of fillet knives for the entire world. Does anyone know what kind of steel they might be (i put their birthday at 1958) and how to treat them? Perhaps they wouldn't make good blades at all.

Hello. I am in the process of making some knives from 1095 and need someone who can heat treat them for me. I am using 1095. I tried a sample piece in a makeshift coal forge and it didn't turn out well. Some of the metal seemed to melt and after quenching in oil there were deep pitted areas all over. Also I went through the tempering process twice at 400 deg. for 1 hour each and after the second time I had some cracks in the knife edge. I am a beginner so I don't have many tools. Just a side cutter and 6" grinding wheel. I live in Chattanooga, TN so if anyone knows of someone close by that can give me a hand with this I would great appreciate it. Thank y…

flat spring steel profile to shape heated to non magnetic quenched and oil tempered three times at 350 in oven polishing blade blade snap hand polishing what went wrong?

Is there some where I can send a knife blade to have them do the heat treatment? I'm just starting and I don't have the right tools.

heloo people, i am not a real black smith or anything but i am an enthusiastic new metal worker and i make improvised swords and stuff i live in quite an urbanised area but there arent really any advanced hardware stores around, so i usually have to make a barbecue fire or use the kitchen stove and collect junk :D and i dont have access to proper steels. recently i started work on a knife, it normal iron,the type used by welders for making gates and ladders ( its not steel as far as i know) , and i need to harden it as much as i can because right now its not much use as the edge isnt durable, what exactly should i do? i have no access to torches or a forge or power too…

I have notices that sometimes after quenching 5160, the blade will sometimes curve out of wack slightly. Is this a problem from possibly uneven heat prior to the quench? The heat looks even and it is not a constant problem but is very annoying when it does happen. The quench i am using is sunflower oil and i am using a 2 burner LP forge. Also, possibly because I am using a coil spring for stock and the steel is trying to return to its original shape? I annealed the steel prior to forging, normalized after, and then the quench and temper. Is there a way to avoid this happening? -Crazy Ivan

I did not make this knife and I know nothing about it. If it was heat treated or not. Some tenants left it in my rental house. I do however like the work and the shape. It is an HC spike, which I understand has less than 1/2 the carbon we might like. It is quite soft, a couple strokes with a rusty file put a pretty good edge on it, I refined it with a stone, took it to a barbeque where I cut the meat off a small well cooked chicken and it was dull - visible edge. I'm thinking of just an aggressive quench, like brine or even super quench. Would that make it a somewhat reasonable light duty knife ?

Is it possible to make a blade stay blue after quenching? I just watched a video that showed Tony Swatton heat treat a sword made out of 5160 spring steel to a blue temper and then when the sword was completely finished it was still that same blue color. I am new to blacksmithing and the heat treating process but from all my research I did not think that was possible. So my question is is it possible? and if it is how is it done? The part in question is at 3:58

My mother is an optometrist and had an old unit for tempering photochromic lenses around. I know that to temper lenses it needs to get to 400 degrees Celsius , so it may be able to heat treat blades. The unit appears to have some kind of thermocouple, and thermostat as it automatically turns on and off to maintain some preset temperature. However, the unit has no controls save for a single switch. Is there any way I can modify it to make it useful for heat treating blades? Also, where in Canada can I procure some more salt, as the unit is running a little low. The unit in question is a Mini-20 manufactured by Kirk Optical.

I'm going to a night class in blacksmithing. The blacksmith asked me to bring scrap steel ( similar to 1070, 1084, 01, W2). I got a batch of old worn out files that i just found out where made out of W2 tool steel.There will be a coal forge, water, oil, magnets. How would you heat treat it?