Heat Treating Knives, Blades etc

So I made a few knives and spears to start learning how to smith. And my newer creations are better. But when I went to the older stuff its more weak and flexible. And will bend but not bounce back into straight shape. Any ideas? Do I have to heat it hotter? Or cool is faster or slower? Thanks for reading.

I forged an axe this weekend and need to know how to temper it. The axe is made out of 1045 and is a punched hole axe. I have heat treated it in peanut oil (just the edge) and let it cool over night. How can I temper the axe and to what temprature? Thanks, Steven

I didn't want to hijack the earlier thread so started this one. I am making a knife (my first) for my dad out of a file (simmons file to be exact).I annealed ( to nonmagnetic and slow cooled in the forge with it off). Then shaped the blade. Then thought I was normalizing did the same thing 3 times. I didn't let it aircool (my mistake I think) I left it in the forge again. Then I semipolished/ hand sanded the blade. At this point I thought I was good and quenched in motor oil. Used motor oil due to impatience and thats what I had. (I followed safety precautions....) Once cool I tempered at 375 for 2 cycles at an hour. Big issue/ question. I ran the blade on a c…

I have put in around 8 hours of time into the blade, forged it to shape and blade edge close, then filed it, then filed somemore, then sanded from 60 to 220. Heated to non-magnetic, oil quenched in warm motor oil. Heat treated at 375 for 3 1/2 hours, then soft-back drawed the back edge to a gun-metal (full color run), making the blade look awesome with the heat treat color, and my back draw colors. Had my elk taper drilled, guard and butt filed to hammer-fit. Had it all to fit togther seamlessly. Went to pein on the butt peice, got 2 measly strikes with a 3 ounce pein, and the tang sheared around 3/4 of an inch from the end. Really small grain, had the same grain as a pei…

Howdy. I am currently deployed in Kuwait, and am looking at getting into knifemaking. I have been looking at designs for forges, and I have a pretty good design for a forge I want to make with an ammo can, bricks, metal pipe, and a hairdryer. We have plenty of scrap wood, and charcoal is cheap at the PX so fuel is no problem. I can also find a section of I beam to use as an anvil. I want to buy some sections of steel, I am not sure which is better, either 1095 hi carbon, or CMPS 90V. I want to design a hunting type knife for a wet, crappy climate, (Alaska). We have all the necessary tools for cutting and hammering and grinding, but I am curious about heat treating.…

So this is my first self-made knife. I was wondering, can I anneal the knife for a shorter amount of time if i don't have a lot of time and still be able to work with it? (Im making it from a file, or a thinner piece of household metal that anyone else can think of) I really appreciate everyone's help on this thread. Thank you.

I was watching a new show on Discocery last night, "Blade Brothers", which is a series featuring a custom knife shop (stock removal=sad face). One of the things I found intriguing was the maker's method of quenching the steel by sandwiching the piece straight out of the HT oven between two 1" thick slabs of aluminum to use as a heat sink. Any craftsmen around here ever try that? Thoughts on this method vs say oil or water quenching (based on the steel in use)?

I have dozens of cubic feet of perlite because I have a greenhouse business. I thought perlite might be a good alternative to vermiculite, which is hard to get in my region. Is there any down side to using it? I know it's high in silica but I'm not sure that steel heated for annealing would be hot enough to melt it.

I HAVE SEARCHED THE FORUM AND HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO FIND ANY POSTS ON HEAT TREATING A BLADE MADE FROM 01X15N20. MY BLADE IS ALMOST FINISHED AT 224 LAYERS AND DO NOT WANT TO RUIN IT AT THIS POINT. MY FIRST TIME WITH THIS COMBINATION. ANY HELP PLEASE. TRIPP

how can i avoid pitting when i heat a piece up to harden it? i tried covering it in borax but i still get some bad pits that take forever to grind out. most my projects haven't mattered but i am working on a couple blades and don't want to spend three days polishing. can i use something in the fire to keep my work piece from getting to hot before it all gets to temp? or is it the nature of the beast and there's just a lot of grind/sand work to do. i was thinking put a firebrick in and keep my blade on it for more even heat but my rivet forge is probably to small. any ideas?

What clay compounds are acceptable to use? Is it something that I'll have to make up myself, or is their a product on the market that I can use? Any help and/ or recommend recipes would by dualy appreciated

Hello all, I made a couple of blades for a Buck 501 knife that had a broken blade. This photo is what the two blades looked like before final finish. The next 3 photos are of one blade after heat treating. Normalizing twice by taking to non-magnetic, then cooling. Then to non-magnetic and quenching in canola oil. File wouldn't cut at all - just slide. Then bake in oven for 1 hr at 400ºF for 1 hr- did that twice. Then for final finish. I took the one blade, clamped pointy end in vise about an inch from end, grasped other end with channel locks, bend over until break. Top section has a nice bend before breaking just above vice jaws. The 3 views are at…

Got free mystery leaf springs. Yay sparks hi carbon and my next question is dip or edge quench in 100 degree plus oil then normalize. What temp how long how many times? Is multiple quenches a good thing? I'm going to make a blank and give it the leg vice and vice grips test. How far along to finish does this test need to be? Daily carry utility farm is the planned usage.

i have been reading on here a lot today and see a lot of you mention to not bother with water but quench in oil, i don't know anything about knife making keep in mind just curious because i know that some makers such as murray carter and bob kramar use water to quench, is this just for certain steels, skill level, or what factors? thanks

Saturday is my "play day" in the shop where I work/play for myself. I had 5 knives to heat treat and decided to try a new quench (to me)...canola oil heated to 120 deg. The blades were heated for 5 mins to 1500 deg in a salt bath, then immediately quenched in the oil. After an hour tempering at 350 deg, the Rockwell was in the upper 40's/low 50's. Most of the blades were 1095/L6, and one was O1/L6. Three of the five were chef blades, and the others are hunters. As my good friend Stuart Sinclair, a Scotsman, would have said: Wot ahh shi..y day. Steve, Rich,others, any ideas? Thanks for any suggestions. John

I am using 8670 and trying to do differential quenching. I am trying to just hardned the edge only. I am quenching in water and when I do the blades break. I might try oil but am not sure. I dont want to break more blades. I also did one with firebrick clay and it broke also. Help

I was wondering if anyone can tell me why when I try to anneal my forged 1095 blades after 2 normalizing cycles it warps on me. I forge my blade, no warps at all. Normalize, allow to cool to black on a piece of kaowool, normalize again with the same process. Back in forge one more time but instead of pulling back out, I turn off forge, plug opening with kaowool and let cool very slowly. Blade is still warm to touch next morning, so I know it has cooled very slowly. But it warps every time! A little help guys. Do I even need to anneal if I am normalizing after forging? Seems like the metal is a little hard to sand and polish if I don't anneal. I have also tried an…

i have been recieving advice and constructive critic over the weekend in regards to making a combat knife out of a file. so I want to pitch my understanding/idea to see if I have the concept down: if I dont want to anneal first, I can cold stock removal shape the blade and then heat it to critical, quench it, then temper it? or could I JUST temper it if i did not comprimise the hardening ? thanks for having patience with me guys. I love you all.

a couple of blades i forged from files keep snapping easy. the tips will break off. i can put it in a vice and put very little pressure on it and it snaps off. i hardened them using oil quench and tempered them in a kitchen oven at 400 deg for an hour. i may have forged them too thin, they were between 2-3mm thick. is it the steel type of the file that is the problem or did i not temper it correctly?

I'm looking for advice. I bought Ed Caffrey's video on knife making a while back and I was trying to heat treat 5160 his way (Edge quench 3 times and temper 3 times 2h at 350). So far this has been working out well for me, but now my crazy brother wants a knife to stab a pig. Apparently you can hog hunt with a big knife in some states. The outfitter recomends a sharpend clip. So I would like to build a knife out of 5160 with a hardend clip, but it needs to be very strong. Right now I was thinking of heating the whole blade to non magnetic 3 times and quenching in oil but tempering around 400 deg to give me a little more flex. I would think edge holding would not be as big…

Hey guys, I am BRAND NEW to the knife making thing, and this forum seems like a perfect place to get help. I am starting with stock removal. I bought some steel for about $5 online and was wondering if I get a few tips on hardening. I was wondering if I can use the oven in my house?

Hello everyone, I accidentally left a 52100 bowie knife in the oven tempering at 450F overnight... I'm curious as to what it has done to the steel. Should I re-harden it? Has anyone accidentally done this too?

So I'm moving into new territory on this one. I forged a saxon style 4 bar billet, consisting of a cutting edge which is bloomery steel I made a Ric Furrers smelting class, and 3 bars of wrought iron. My questions are how different is the normalization process from damascus made of 1084/15n20, and how do I go about hardening/tempering? The bloomery steel is about medium carbon steel judging by the spark trail. Rusty

Ok, I've made my first knife blank and am wondering how to heat treat it and temper it. Also how do I mount the handle on the tang.

I was finally successful in creating a hamon! W2 file normalized, annealed, shaped, then my attempt at hamon clay, light oil quench, and 390 degree temper. The process was first all tested with pieces of an similar file. I found water quench yielded cracks, so I went over to oil. Here's a few pics of testing, drying clay, and post tests next to right outta the oil. Since it's to be used in a kitchen I went ahead and gave it an acid bath; plus I just like the way it makes the hamon pop. What do you guys think?