Heat Treating Knives, Blades etc

As you raise the set temperature for tempering 01, from 500fh.=Hrc57 800fh.=HRC50 1000fh.=HRC42; what happens to the abrasion resistance as the hardness goes down? If 01 is in the normalized state how much abrasion resistance does it possess compared to hardened 01? I would appreciate your insight, Fred

I have been making a knife from a rasp. I quenched in oil after heating to a bright cherry red (orange to me ) it did not get as hard as I expected. I did a test with another file in water and it came out very brittle. What should I have expected from the oil quench. I used liquid vegetable oil.

I'm working with a few different steels. I use 52100 and 5160 mostly but I'm venturing over into damascus blades the last couple of months and use a combination of 5160, 52100, and 15n20. For a straight carbon steel blade what would you recommend for quench oil and would you recommend a different one for the damascus? The otherhalf works for an oil company and can sneak away a couple of gallons, her boss said it was ok.

Looking for recommendations for books - with an emphasis on heat treating. I know how to "make" a knife...but my heat treatment is completely hit or miss at this point. I'd like to make a quality blade, not just a pretty one. Thanks.

I have been reading here and I have seen that if you warm the oil it will give a faster quench. Did I read this right? I have warmed the oil before, but I did it because I was told to and I thought that it must slow the quench. Being an "armchair engineer" I would think that warm oil would slow and ice cold would speed up. Is it because the oil gets thicker when cold and thiner when warm? Is this true with quenching in water? Thanks for your patience for the newbie ????

I just finished my new heat treat oven and thought you folks would like to see it. If you have any questions feel free to ask. Bob

A friend of mine asked me to design and make a knife for him. It's a survival type with saw teeth in the spine. How would I go about tempering the blade to keep the edge and saw teeth hard and give a little flex via a softer center? Its forged from a leaf spring and is 8"" from point to plunge cut. Approx 3/16 thick. I'll can only email pics. My phone won't let me post pics on here. Ill send a picture to anyone who wants it. Thank!

Hello I picked these up for a song, and now I want to make them work, or is it a waste of time? any input would be appreciated. I am unable to find any info on the old one, it was manufactured for gunsmithing

I'm in the middle of a knife made from a rail drill bit. I've annealed twice, forged the rough blade, ground and am currently sanding at 180 grit. My last attempt with this steel was for my daughter and only my 3rd knife. It turned out OK she likes it but this time I know more and am trying to get the most from this steel. The bits are made by TIPCO and the picture matches their carbide bits. My local metal shop has a heat treating oven and a hardness tester. They will be drilling the tang for me (I could not drill the last one). any info or advice would be greatly appreciated Thanks Bob

Can anyone give me a procedure for hardening and tempering 52100 steel in the forge Thanks Mike Tanner

OK, I've got a wrought iron wagon wheel forged down to what I want for a camp knife. What's the final finishing, like harden and temper would be for a carbon steel blade? How about either cold forge hammering the edge or hot forging the edge and then filing.....

Hey guys, I know this has probably been posted before, but the search function just doesn't like me like me today. I forged a blade from a saw mill canter head blade, but I cannot get it soft enough to drill. I do not know what steel it is, but I assume it may be tool steel and given the trouble I am having it maybe airhardening. So I tried heating it past non magnetic(more heat on the area to be drilled) then put it in a bucket of vermiculite overnight. I placed two other pieces of hot steel in with it because the night time temperatures are in the 20's here. so I checked it this morning still very hard. File just slides off and can't even get a center puch t…

I made some pretty cool hatchets out of old farrier rasps. I was wondering how hot to draw the temper to? THe only one I tempered so far, I put it in the oven at 500 for on hour or better. The wife wasn't real happy with me because i couldn't get all the oil out of the eye. The fine side of the rasp is left in the eye making it hard to clean out. Anyway, I found a toaster oven at walmart for $18, but the thing only goes to 450. I can find info on knives and such, just not much on axes and hatchets. The other thing I was wondering about is should I be leaving the back soft and just hardening the cutting edge. If I put the back in water and heat it with a o/a torch, then I …

I'm trying my hand at a sword, so far the largest knife I've done was a 12" blade on a bowie. I've got the blade, a single edged falchon type, basicly an extra extra long bowie, forged, normalized and rough ground. I can bring it up to critcle and quench, not a problem. I plan on doing a clay backing, but what about tempering? It's too long for any of my ovens, I had been thinking of doing by colors and using a steel pipe in my gas forge. Ideas? BTW, the blade is 5160 from john deere load shafts. Thanks

OK i know this is a stupid question but my forge is broke and im desperate lol i need to know if it is possible to use an oxy-acetaline cutting torch and tap magic cutting oil to heat treat a small knife made out of 5160

i have been reading about tempering in a home oven but was wondering about what temperature should it be done at for rail road spike knives?

Hello, First off, Hope everyone here had a wonderful christmas, i know i certainly did! Anyway, i made an axe head out off a peice of old leaf spring (5160 as far as i know) and i want to know how to harden and temper it safley. The only oil i have is used motor oil whic from past experiences, works qiuet well with knives. This axe head is a different story all together. it will mostly be a small carving/light chopping axe. Can someone please give a detailed explanation of how i should do this? I understand the consepts of heat treating and have put some of them into practice (not axe heads though) so iam not a complete noob at it Some help with this would be mu…

Hi guys I'm planning to make a quench tank this week and I just wanted to get some input. I'm thinking 4" or 6" pipe about 3 feet long welded to a steel plate , this is similar to what I used at the ABS school. Is this the simple mater I think it is or am I missing something ? Anything I'm over looking ? Any method or tips you care to share would help Thanks lyman

Well, that welded cable I showed in the "Cable Won't Weld" thread came out really nice. I finally got a chance to grind that tanto blank down to the roughed out knife. I have it down as far as I want to go with the rough sanding. It's time to heat treat, but I have read that if you edge quench when you heat treat cable damascus it will ruin the way the the damascus looks when you acid etch. So, any suggestions on how to treat this particular piece of metal???? I was thinking taking the whole thing to non magnetic then do a full dunk in oil for the quench. Then, after cooling, take the whole thing back to "straw" and call it a day and start the final finish. Here is…

hey just wondering first of all if damascus steel always tempers differently like this and what u think of the start to my first folder thanks

Hi everyone, I recently bought C80W2, the steel arrived yesterday, here is the chemical analysis: C 0,82% Si 0,25% Mn 0,22% Mo -- V -- Cr 0,10% Ni 0,05% Cu 0,06% W 0,01% P 0,030% max S 0,030% max I have never worked with this steel before so I hope you can give me some tips about how to heat treat this steel. I intend to make several tanto with the steel and I will be claying it to form a hamon. This steel seemed ideal to make a hamon. From the information I have gathered this seems like a good heat treatment: Normalize 2 times by heating to 820 Celcius (1510F), taking it out of the fire, cool till black color, heat up to 820 again, cool to room tem…

Hi, People have been using plain carbon steels like 1050, 1060, 1075 and others with great success in the past decades in making Japanese style blades. These steels have a solid reputation for creating a good Hamon. They are shallow hardening, it is not hard to create a Hamon, and if done well, the Hamon will be readily visible and with lots of activity. The 1075 Katana's made by people like Rick Barrett and Anthony Dicristofano are well known for there tough blades and beautiful Hamons. When you look at some typical analysis of the properties of these steels, you can see they have A LOT of manganese and sometimes they even have a bit of chromium (however, the chro…

hello there I live in east tennessee where red clay is abundant and I was just curious if it would work well for a heat treatment on a japanese style blade

well i have been thinking about a more even way to temper blades so finally decided to make a tempering oven .. i used a digital controler from ebay with a solid state relay grabbed a toaster oven from the goodwill and a way i went ! i made a box from some 16 ga sheet metal the box measures 4in sq and 4 ft long . lined it with ko wool put the heating elements end to end (actually they made a perfect 4 ft single element) hooked everything up and tested it out other than some calabrateing (it got too hot the test piece turned purple instead of straw) it worked great! it does take some knowledge of basic electronics to make this but its not rocket science .. suprised they…

G'day, i've made a dagger out of 1075 and 15N20 (first patern weld ) and would like to hear what you guys use to quench this combination. I've got old cooking oil or ALOT of old engine oil from trucks. The blade is 32mm wide, 6mm thick and about 250mm long. I've left 6mm of flat steel in the spine of the blade and the rest is bevelled. I thought it might be wise to ask first just incase, i dont want to ruin this one. What would you do? I promise pictures once its done too ;)