Excalibuitar

Thanks Felix, very helpful. So to normalize, get them to non magnetic and remove from the coals? Or should I turn off the blower and let the fire die slowly with the knife inside, then air cool? B

I use a coal forge. Anyway, they looked a lot nicer, and were all cleaned up and smooth before the heat and quench. The quench seemed to create a lot of the 'pits' and stuff you can see up close.. Not sure. As for the annealing, I have read that it is used to soften metal to make it workable. Didn't seem necessary, especially after reading the techniques of others, many of which not including any annealing. It's pretty confusing to try and make sense of what to do when everyone does things differently. I suppose I'll stick em in the oven and see what happens.. Trying to clean them up first with the grinder..

Didn't know whether to post this in Knife making or Heat Treating.. Figured I'd keep it here since HT is an essential part of making knives. Anyway, I am new to the whole weapon making thing. I started on my first 2 knives yesterday and got them both ground down relatively nicely for never having used an angle grinder before. One is a dagger with small tang and the other a full tang work knife, both made from the same coil spring from a mid 60's Ford Falcon. I heated to non-magnetic, and quenched immediately in room temperature vegetable oil. After this first one, I remembered hearing for 5160 (which is my best guess on the coils..) it should have been heated first.. So, before quenching the 2nd knife I heated the oil with a hot piece of square stock. Anyway, they both came out with white splotches all over. I was going to stick em in the oven for 2 hours at 375 and then turn it off and let them cool to room temperature in there.. But I figure I'll play it safe® and get some opinions on here. I assume I screwed them up... Also worth mentioning, I did not anneal them at any time in the process as they forged easily without cracking and I was under the impression it wasn't necessary.. First post here, but I've been reading and drooling over knives for a few days now. Thanks in advance for any help.. Brandon