Heat Treating Knives, Blades etc

Hello! I’m brand new to iforgeiron as of about 15 minutes ago. I recently got into blacksmithing, I’ve always thought it was interesting, started with just making tongs and practicing my hammer control with mild steel until I thought I was ready to make a knife. I ordered some 80CRV2, I forged a few knives. They turned out okay, a little profile bro ding and they looked pretty good. I’m ready to heat treat them but I didn’t want to screw them up. So I used some scrap 80CRV2 (a few little 1”-ish triangles I hot cut off the end of the flat bar while forging). I did about 6 hours of research (so many different recommendations!). i try not to take anything on the interne…

Hi there, i found a kiln build video on YouTube and it claims that his kiln has heat up times as follows: 800°C (1472°F) → 6.38 minutes 900°C (1652°F) → 10.10 minutes 1000°C (1832°F) → 15.45 minutes 1100°C (2012°F) → 25.09 minutes compared to other builds this heat up time ist really fast. He uses aprox. 60-80 mm / 2.3-3.15'' aerated concrete (600 kg/m3) as additional insulation around IFB 23 bricks and 4kW heating. Internal dimensions aprox. W x H x D 6''x4.5''x18''. Is there a simplified calculation to determine heat up time to a specific temperature? I would like to understand why his design heats up much faster compared to other bu…

Hello everyone, I am currently working on a short sword that I forged from a rail clip and I need a walkthrough the HT process. So far I have gathered that the material is something like 1060 with slightly higher manganese content than usual. I've looked at as many relevant discussions that I can find but I couldn't find anything going in depth into the heat treat process. What I did collect from those discussions is that an oil quench has been the most successful but I am still unsure what temperature to normalize, quench and temper. hoping for somthing more specific than non magnetic because that hasn't gone great in the past. thanks to anyone who responds, J…

Hi guys, first time post and I’m looking to find out what I did wrong, this is only the 3rd blade I have made and when I tried a quick chop test is snapped in half, it looks like there was a stress fracture in the blade but I could be wrong, could it have been an error with the heat treat or temper?

How would I heat treat a axe at home without knowing which metal it is made from

Hi! I work at a 19th century museum forge, and have some pieces that'll need tempering, but are too big for either the shop's tempering oven (it's a little toaster oven) or my own home oven. It definitely makes me wonder how tempering was accomplished before the advent of temperature-control ovens! Even the country blacksmith needed to make and repair scythes and wagon springs. Do y'all have any suggestions on techniques I should look into, or better yet any books written with the pre-industrial-revolution blacksmith or even swordsmith (scythes are close enough to swords) in mind? Currently my research has been a dead end. The local libraries are rather scant on blac…

Greetings, I recently had a conversation with a blade maker who told me that his method for hardening and tempering is as follows. Using a tub of water, he places all but the half inch of edge in the water. He then takes an oxyacetylene torch and heats the metal using slow circular motions until it is bright red. He continues evenly down the blade in this manner until reaching the end. When the color fades, he takes the knife out of the water and lets it finish cooling in the air. This is very different from any other method I've heard of. Has anyone tried this themselves? Is this a standard practice I don't know about? The process seems logical, but at the same…

I am getting a piece of a M242 Bushmaster barrel. The guy wants a knife made from it. I have no idea on how to heat treat it. Anyone here can give me some advice.

Hi all, I am very new to actually smithing but have been lurking here for the past few years. I finally got a forge and some 1095 (I have since sourced some 1084 that may be more forgiving) and took the plunge. I have forged a piece of 1/8" 1095 into more or less a blade shape and did a rudimentary quench in water (I do know oil is preferred, but I was really just experimenting). I promptly broke my blade about 10-15 seconds out of the quench trying to fix a slight warp. I had planned to test to destruction anyhow, so I'm not heart broken. I would however like to take the opportunity to learn about my grain. This was not normalized, the quench was done at only slightly ab…

So I've got some strange behavior and discoloration that I don't understand. I'm using known steel, 5160. I forge my knives and then normalize 3 times followed by a nice and even pre-grind. I quench between red and orange (by eye, using the forge), making sure to have a really even temperature throughout the blade. I use parks 50 at room temperature for the oil. Then temper at 400 in the oven for at least an hour, two cycles. I've had great results overall but have noticed this discoloration on the few breaks I get, in this instance it happened both at the bolster, AND the tip of the blade. Any clue as to what this could be? Also while you're here, how's my…

i don't have any way to get my knife blanks hot enough to heat treat so i was hoping i could pay someone like 10-15 dollars or so to heat treat one or two of them for me

I have an old file that I would like to identify. The only mark on it is a 5 point star with the letters SF over CO inside the star. Anybody know which file maker used this logo? I have forged it into a knife and ready for heat treatment. Trying to determine what steel it is

I have seen bladesmiths fully harden a knife blade and then soften the spine of the blade while keeping the edge cool. This has been called "bluebacking" What are the pros and cons of this technique?

new guy here! been messing with the forge off and on for awhile found this site a few months ago and been reading thru it and recently a good buddy of mine gave me a stack of farrier rasps (heller i believe) and i quenched one and slapped it with a hammer and it broke so im making a chef knife for my first knife. my question is, i have it ground down and i think im almost ready to quench and temper it but im not sure how far to grind it down before i go about tempering, i have it down to 2ish mm maybe a little less and going off of what i read i shouldnt take it down anymore until after temper. after temper it seems like it will take a little bit to get sharp and im worri…

I can pick up bags of either one at the local (really local, so good) home improvement/hardware store. Is one better for use as a insulating material for slow cooling blades for annealing? I'm just getting started in this stuff. Thanks, Barnaby

Hey all! Having troubling hardening O1. I have a 6mm thick bushcraft blade that’s normalised and annealed… soaked it at 815 Celsius for 15 mins (in a pipe in the forge) and quenched in canola oil at 40 Celsius. But no luck! File cuts fine… I tried with a smaller piece of steel that hardened fine. Maybe 6mm is too thick? And is not quenching/cooling fast enough? Thanks for your help!

I understand that double hardening can increase the hardening for 5160. My question is: do you then also do two rounds of tempering? Or just two hardening steps and then temper? What I am really after is optimal sequencing for 5160 steel. I am making mocotaugans. Is there any 5160 fans out there with advice for me?

Gentlemen...I have a problem that I as a very new Smith need ur expertise with...I forged 3 hand axes/tomahawks and thinking that I had a good hard base material I used AR400....the axes themselves turned out beautifully....after I polished them I heated them to critical temperature and quenched them in motor oil...the result was disappointing...while there was a change in hardness(the metal went from a dull clunk when tapped to a glassy ring...when I checked the hardness with a file..the file did skate off for a little bit but did eventually bite into the steel...after I did some research..which I definitely shoulf.habedone beforehand...I discovered that ar400 is conside…

I found this locally and they are asking $100. Will this work to heat treat knives, granted if it works? I am so new at knife making I am trying to learn.

I'm going to list what I've learned about it so far and if sometime would kindly tell me In wrong and how it should go I'd appreciate it. Take clay or refractory cement, type unknown, goo it into the blade's spine. Heat the blade to desired quenching temp and quench. Things I'm not quite sure about but I can't find the info; I'm going to cycle the blade several times, do I clay it for this? Unknowns; not sure. Once I'm done forging and grinding I'll be posting some pictures of this project. I'm wanting to really push my skills here and I want to keep it kind of close to the vest.

Quick question: what does it refer to when "drawing the spine back?"

I got these machine blades (I think they're for a large plainer) and made a cleaver. I tried hardening in oil but a file bites into it with no problem. Does anyone have any experience with blades like this? Should I try quenching in water?

Im not 100% sure on what I am looking at, so hoping some you experts could provide your wisdom. How do the grains look in this? This was a "knife" i was working on practicing heat treat. It seems to have been hardened since it very easily snapped. Tried taking as good a picture as I could.

So I broke it. It didn't look bad. I think it was while I was forging it. I may have worked it too cold. Any other opinions? 5160, I'll quenched with 2 cycles of 90 minutes at 425 for tempering. I tried breaking it further up on the knife with no luck, just moved my leg vice across the floor.