Heat Treating Knives, Blades etc

I'm new to the site and have been doing lots of reading. I used to work at a machine shop and when we heat treated parts we always left them a little oversize and ground them down to finish size after heat treating. Does the same thing apply to knives? For instance do you grind the bevel before heat treating? Do you sharpen the knife before heat treating? I don't want to make this more complicated than it is. Thanks in advance for the responses.

I'm working on my first knife and have finshed shaping and am ready to heat treat and tempur...I'm clear on heat treating. My question is specifically with tempuring. I've read through a lot of posts here and have a lot of ideas on what to do but still many questions. So here goes... Basic skinner knife. Small with a three inch blade. I've read using an oven set at a particular temp for a set time I've read heating the spine of the blade slowly to a straw color stopping prior to reaching the blade. I've read something about placing the spine of the blade on a thick piece of steel and heating that piece with a torch... SO what do i do??

I have attempted to follow the links for the Vorhoeven document in several of the posts on the forum and in the stickies and blueprints. They all appear to be broken now. If anyone has this document on file, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

Hey everybody, I am here today to report a most grievous failure on my part. I have been working on leaf spring kukri knife for the past couple of days. I quenched it today and then annealed the back, after which the blade split. I have posted a video on youtube so that you can see exactly what I did. here is the link: YouTube - Making the Leaf Spring Kukri Knife, Part2 (FAIL) please help!

Im making a chokuto style sword but i dont have the equipment to do hardening properly im looking for someone i can pay to do differential hardening

Greetings all! I know guys, this has been covered quite alot and I'm sure you are weary in well doing. But just tell me when I go wrong. What I do for my 5160 steel is this: Forge it to the proper shape, and anneal. I then grind and move on to HT. So far so good right? Now here is where I know I'm missing something. I then heat the piece to cherry and let it cool in still air untill it looses its color, I do this three times(normalizing). I re-heat to cherry(critical) and quench in warm motor oil. I then temper for 20 min. at 230 C. Anything I missed? Too much grain growth? Any help is more than welcome. Thanks dudes!:D

Ok ive got my blade ready for hadening and tempering my blade is an old leafspring from a truck ill be useing oil heated to close to 130f to harding it nor when tempering in a oven ill back it at no highter than 450f for 1 hour and repeat 3 times correct or do i need to do it differnt i had all this info on my pc and after the power comp sent me a $6000 bill for 1 month that im fighting with them over now im staying with friends and useing dial up so its realy hard to search for the info i dont want to ty up there pc no longer than needed so if 1 of you folks could give me a direct link or tell me how the wifes oven tempering is done i would realy thank you

I bought some 1084 1/4" 11/2"x12" cut it into quarters and forged a blade draw filed to shape and quenched in motor oil (115 degrees)then heated in the forges dragon breath at a light straw. The first time went to blue so had to anneal and start over. I went to quench after draw filing, probably should have finished to 120? I have never tried to heat treat before because my forgings were so poor, so got excited. Any and all comments welcome..I can take it LOL The last pic shows a little warp at the tang that i got in the temper.

Hello, all, I'm not sure if this is the right sub-forum to post my question, but it looked like the best choice so here goes: I want to make a 5.7mm spoke wrench for my motorcycle. I originally made one out of some 7/64" mild steel with a cutoff wheel and a file but I would like to use something thicker so that there would be less chance of "digging in" to the aluminum spoke heads. I don't have any steel lying around that's thick enough, so I was wondering about using a piece of rebar and then heating/quenching and tempering it in the oven. Does anyone know whether the steel used in rebar will harden well enough for this application? Thanks, Jeff

I was wondering, What is the BEST way for tempering blades and the like?

Hello, I am trying to anneal a leaf spring to make a knife, I heated the metal to non-magnetic and quenched it in used motor oil and let it cool. I tried to drill a hole in the blank but it is too hard, the bit wouldn't even dent it. I thought this process would soften the metal so it could be worked. What did I do wrong? Thanks

could someone tell me why i should/would use hot salt to temper my blades? i plan to make a hot bed with 1 1/4 plate to heat ,place blade onto plate then cover with insulation and alow to cool slowly from temper heat. This is after first quench and to set the temper of steel

Duck is having problems annealing files. He heats to red and then put the hot file in ashes to cool slowly. When the file is cool, it is still to hard to drill etc. Any suggestions on how to soften this file ? Thanks, Duck.

:confused:what is triple quenching? triple hardening or tempering or something else? heard it a lot but i'm not sure what it is and how it is different from just single. any info would be good

If you have never been here, this is one fine example of why you cannot believe much of what you read on the internet and why, when you find a site like this one, you stay with it:Real Armour

Hi everyone! So I decided to try and get a hamon line on this new blade that I was working on. I mixed up some local clay, ash, fine iron filings, and water, then put it along the back of the blade, and quenched in oil. Rarely in my life has anything gone so smoothly. There was no warping or cracking in the blade, and the edge really hardened. My only concern with this blade is that I ground the edge too thin to start with, so I don't think it'll last for very long. I guess I'll have to be gentle with it. This photo is of the blade after tempering in my toaster oven and some brief sanding, then I did a quick etch with hot vinegar to see how clear the hamon line rea…

Sorry to post so many questions in the last few days but I am nervous while I am making my first knife/anything. I have read that some people do not temper their spike knives because they don't want to lose any of the little hardness it has. Is this a good idea ? I don't want my knife to crack either :confused: Thank you guys again, everyone has been so great! -Justin

I have read that using ice water works to get a little extra hardness out of it. Do you guys think it would crack the piece though ? I know that 1030-1040 can take a pretty harsh quench though. Thanks guys >

i have heard or tempering a knife in a toaster oven...how well does it work? i was thinking of getting one to temper in....or getting a small propane torch.... also a small clip on propane stove to modify....

im not going to attempt to hide my ignorance because it won't get me anywhere.... I have seen other blacksmiths temper tools by simply heating them up to a blue (or whatever appropriate color for the tool) and quench at that heat to temper, and i have copied the practice on my own tools with success. However, after reviewing some old threads, i see that it seems blades require hours at a steady temp. Could someone please give a steady explanation?

Hello everyone. I have finished my box bellows and am really happy with it. I am currently making a butchers knife for my sister who is a chef. It is a hidden tang knife forged from a leaf spring. I just need a few questions answered: Is leaf spring steel oil or water quenching? If so, at what temp? And I wanted to bring out a quenching line when finished. Will it come out with oil if it is to be quenched with oil? Thanks guys, I owe you one!!

I am new to this site and blacksmithing as well. I did a one week blacksmithing camp, with 3 hour sessions. But with this meager experience, I still feel confident enough to buy materials to make a very small forge. just recently, I got a book from the library about smithing, called "The Modern Blacksmith" by Alexander G. Weygers. It involves mainly tool making, but knifemaking as well. One subject it talks about a lot is tempering the steel, something that I'm confused about. What I do know is that it's quenching the steel at certain color, or temperature. But can anyone give a good description of how to do it, or what it involves? Thanks a lot.

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Well since I am getting the hang of bladesmithing down by using spike knives, various kinds. But I make sure they are all stamped with HC. Tested them all as well. Approx: 1040 I'm guessing. I have 5 different sorts of knives and one small seax. Steps so far... 1- Hot Forging 2- Ground and filed. 3- Annealed 4- Hardened 5- Normalized 6- Normalized 7- Annealed 8- Hardened I am now at the last ten steps for me so far. I need to 9- Heat Treat 10- Polishing I need to know what temperature I should I temper it too? I'm going to do about 535F, unless told otherwise. Yes I know, it's not real blade steel, but I want to make the knives as strong/sharp as pos…