Heat Treating Knives, Blades etc

Hi, Does anyone have experience with salt pots? I just built one and am getting ready to load it. At the NWBA conference, Bob Kramer recommended using a 50/50 mix of sodium chloride with calcium chloride. Both are readily available at little cost thru Ace hardware. Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Thanks, John

I have heard some folks take their blades out of the temper oven and let them cool slowly to achieve temper. And I have heard others pull their blades out and quench. My question is is their any advantages to either process? Thanks

I'm not quite sure where this fits neatly into a catagory, but here it is: A friend and I just split the cost of a new Rockwell tester (Grizzly) to test our knives. I spent most of today getting the machine dialed in as per the Chinese instructions (some lost in translation), but nonetheless, everything seems to work as advertised with the rated coupons. What amazed me, in testing some of my existing blades, is that they tested a little lower than I had expected. For the carbon steel (5160-52100-1095) non pattern welded blades, the average was in the low-mid 50's on the C scale. I had expected higher for my chef knives. I have a controlled heat treat oven and have tried…

here is what i know about 02 its an oil hardening steel and i plan on doing the triple normalize triple harden then triple temper but can i oven temper? if so how long? if not what is another way to temper? if yall have any critics about my planned process let me know i haven't started on the blade yet just doing research i found another link here about 02 but it didnt really address the temper issue (unless i shoulda bought the book) thanks ahead of time

I had a tester "thrown in" to a package deal when I bought my last cnc machines. The previous owner never used it but was confident all the necessary parts were there. The machines are gone but I still have the tester. The last time I used a tester was in college (30 or so years ago) and I have no recollection how to set it up or use it. An internet search has been all but useless. Is anyone here versed enough on these tools to help me out either personally or direct me to a resource who can? I'd be happy to post pictures and any other info. one might need to get this up and "running". Better yet...if there's someone here in the P.N.W. near enough for me to make a…

Scored a kiln on another forum, a small one but perfect for knifemaking. It is a used 3 times brand new-ish Evenheat copper, which is a glass model but should be just fine for knifemaking. goes up to 2200F which is way hotter then anything I do. Plus side too is it is 110 with a regular plug, slow on heating up but no big deal. No more heating as a variable! Hooray!

Hi Guys, about time I made another contribution on here so here goes. This method works extremely well for me both for knives and anything that needs heat treating where scale and decarburization will cause problems. The purpose of this thread is not to discuss the properties of various types of steel, but simply how a gas forge can be best utilized. OK first up, the Setup I use... Here is a simple sketch... This sums it up pretty simply. Here is how the thermocouple is mounted... Drill a hole in the side of the forge, make a hole in the refractory, I think I just poked a nail through but whatever works for you.. Next take your thermocouple and stick it …

Totally new, so please forgive my ignorance. I have two older hatchet heads that have been in a fire and were somewhat battered up too, but I have cleaned them up and sharpened and they look great. My worry is, since they were in a fire, how do I know if they are still tempered w/o putting on new handles and cutting a tree? Can I re-temper these? I haven't a forge, but can I heat these in a kitchen oven or maybe in an outside wood "campfire" and quench? I haven't coal, but can I use charcoal? I just hate to put new handles on these hatchet heads and find out they are not tempered or have lost their temper. Any help is appreciated as I am lost....thanks!

Anybody know what kind of steel RotoTiller Tines are made of? A friend gave me one to play with for beginning knifemaking practice, and I'm wondering about how to heat treat it. Is it just high carbon, or some fancier kind of tool steel? chad

So I'm told by a knife manufacturer/seller of knife blades, that lead hardened carbon steel is "best" for a knife ?? I had never heard of that.......... Anyway, take high carbon blade and plunge it into boiling lead, then quickly quench in water. I was informed this is a very very old-school method that results in the best tempering. The edge lasts for a very very long time............ I know nothing about hardening as it don't work for me. You have to stand one one ear and only when the moon is waxing and then only on the second tuesday of month. Somebody once explaind to me how to harden spring steel and I was way lost and then when you ask another person same ques…

I have two products, a 1085 large knife and a 5160 tomahawk that I need to harden and anneal. Hardening will be heating up in my forge and quenching in oil. The plan for annealing was to use my oven, which has promptly died in protest of this idea before I could even test it. So, I have a butane/propane torch, a forge, a BBQ with a temperature gauge and two pieces to anneal, probably at the same temperature. What do you think is the best course of action, bearing in mind that this is the only annealing I have done?

i was hardening a bowie knife i made today. i made it from 5160 spring steel. i heated till it was nonmagnetic, then i quenched it in motor oil. i noticed it was a little warped and bent after the quench but i didnt see any cracks. i put it on the anvil to straighten it out a little and bam it broke in half. i didnt even hit it that hard. what did i do wrong?

I've been working on my first knife made from a old file for a while now and have got a bit confused reading from many different sources. I annealed the file overnight in a very hot fire, then cut,ground and shaped my blade. I belive it is ready for heat treating which I will do in a coal forge but need to know weather it needs normalizing first. Isn't that what the orginal annealing did?

OK, this discussion probably belongs in the heat treating sub-forum, and if so, I apologize, but it didn't look like there was a whole lot of traffic there. Here's my question. I have a 54" cut riding mower that uses 3 blades. Buying three blades from Sears will put you back $75 or more. To a person like me, who throws around quarters like manhole covers, this price is absurd. I am a decent SMAW weldor and have the welder and rods and grinders and belt sanders etc etc, and I was thinking of cutting some small "strips" out of some old lawnmower blades and welding them in to replace the steel that has been worn, ground and eroded away, and then grinding on a new bevel…

I want to make a knife out of an old industrial file, but I need a furnace to anneal the steel. Should I just use a conventional oven? Or should I just use a charcoal grill and really crank up the heat? This will be my first knife. I know I am a newbie, but wanted to get started, hopefully, on the right foot.

Recentally ive been making very fine small letter openers out of some old files ive had, the steel is good high carbon tool, and im able to de-magnatise and quench in oil, but tempering is proving a bugger (ive tempered over a fire useing the colour changes to guide me and lost some nice blades in the process when they have snapped in the stress tests), ive heard that useing an oven can make for a very accurate stress free temper, what time and temp would i need to bake these quenched blades to get a nice temper? I dont need super exact science or the ask a question to my question, its small couple mill thick 1/4 inch wide tool steel thats oil quenched looking for a ni…

Something I’ve tried on a recent blade is soaking it at a welding temperature in a coal fire near final shape; letting it cool very slowly in the fire to decrease the likely hood of scale forming. Once at a temperature where it won’t scale I removed it and quickly wrap it in ceramic blanket to let it cool slowly. I’ve done this twice and the second time I didn’t heat it up as much or soak it as long. I’ll normalize again at least twice before heat treating. The idea behind this process is to let the edge absorb some extra carbon from the fire, while not burning carbon off or letting it flake off. Most of the surface carbonized steel will be ground off, but the edge should…

I'm trying to harden and temper a tomahawk made from a ball peen hammer head. I have no idea when or from what the head was made from. I assume tool steel, definetely carbon steel. It was heavily rusted when I rescued it. I don't have an original picture but I have a couple after the first session. I annealed it and want to get it back to at least it's original hardness. I'm not sure what temp or how long to oven temper it. I'm considering a coal forge tempering and quench. Do you quench when you bring a piece out of the oven when tempering? I've been reading a little on this but I have not found a lot on oven tempering. Thanks in advance for any advice. This is…

Has anyone seen this in action? I am looking for an oven instead of the gas forge to get a more consistent temp for heat treating. Saw this and thought price is good but is it good? thought maybe someone has heard of it. http://www.sugarcreekind.com/kilns-knife-kilns-c-273_312.html Thanks RD

howdy , im new to the site ,and really interested in starting to make knives . My question ( the first of many i am sure ) is what would you guys reccomend for someone just starting out to use for the hardening portion of making knives ? I have a recipie of what kind of metal to use and how to do it , i am just not sure what route to go to get there . I have been looking into building a small gas forge however to build one to do a good sized hunting knife is almost as much to just buy one . At this point im not to worried about getting to welding temperatures , as for now im not looking to forge weld anything . I figure when i am ready for that i will be ready to build a …

Forgive my newness to this. I used stock removal method on an edger blade for a quick project. I didn't anneal or normalize, just took the grinder to it. Would I need to re-harden this stock, or could I just go direct to tempering? Thank you in advance for your input.

I am in the process of creating my first knife, actually nearing completion. I chose to forge a railroad spike into a skinner. The blade is formed and ground to near finished. Have not normalised yet but is this the time that it should be treated? Thanks, Mike

My first post so hello to everyone, Intro: Started forging a year ago, practiced it for a maximum of a dozen times, then the winter came and having no indoor possibilities I stopped. I restarted again this weekend. Meanwhile I tried to gather some information. I pretty much want to go through making as much as I can (especially tools: woodworking, metalworking, glass, stone etc.) It's kind of difficult to find guidance (face to face) as very few people do this sort of thing in my city/country (Bucharest/Romania). Still, fortunately I will probably be able to play with forging more than just in the weekends. I'll stop here, as I intend to communicate a lot on this…

So I made my wife a kitchen knife out of 5160 saw steel. I used stock removal to make the blade but since it is a kitchen knife I made it a little longer and thinner than my other knives (all three of the them) however it held an edge through about 20 cutting of meat vegetables and fruits and has lost its razor sharpness I have been told this steel should really hold up. So I am assuming I messed up my heat treatment and didn't get total knife heated well. Anyone ever tried to reheat treat a knife with handle material still on. Was thinking about trying to wrap the handle in wet cloth or something since I don't want to destroy the knife since its the first one I made for …

I have read a lot of discussion about tempering and drawing a straw color in the knife or using an oven and letting it set for an hour in 400 degree heat. What benefit is it for the knife to be warm for an hour vs usin a small torch to draw a wheat color into the knife. Could someone explain this or give me a good website to read about different heat treating processes