Bob E

steve sells What I've been reading has mostly been about heat treating knives where they heat the blade without being too concerned about the tang. They probably were using simpler steels than O1. I wasn't talking about any kind of samurai sword thing, but just heating the only area of the blade that will ever see an edge seemed like it would be easier to accomplish. Would this cause warping, or cracking in O1? son_of_bluegrass So, all I need are a couple of fire bricks? When you say soak do you mean getting an even temp over the whole area or are you talking holding the temp there for a while before quenching? I was hoping a forge would help with evening things out a little bit. I’ve read of folks using both propane and coal forges specifically for heat treating O1. This had me thinking it was the way to go. O1 and A2 are currently well accepted steels used for plane irons, I’m not sure I would want to use something else. ThomasPowers I have a hand held plumbers propane torch. It was cheap when I bought it a long time ago and I don't see any markings so I can't tell you the brand. It has always done well at soldering copper pipes together. I had one of my neighbors call the police one night when I was working in my garage at 11:00 p.m. You may think they were justified, but I don’t have equipment. I use hand tools that don’t make any noise… half of them are wooden…they might be hard to weld into a sculpture. I’ll crack a couple of windows for ventilation. Rich Hale Your absolutely right I flobbered all over that one.

I'm interested in making my own blades for woodworking hand planes by removing stock from O1 bar. The largest blade I intend to make is 2 5/8” x 1/8” x 8”, but 3" from the edge is all that needs to be hardened. One of the reasons I’m interested in doing this is to save money. So, I’m trying to figure out the best way to economically heat up to the curie temperature before quenching in oil and annealing in my toaster oven. I’ve ruled out heat treat ovens. Even the homemade jobs look a little pricey. I’ve seen a few coffee/paint/bean can forges that I think usually use mapp torches. I like the way they look. Easy and clean. I would really like to use the propane torch I have, but would it get hot enough? On a couple youtube videos I’ve seen, these forges seem to have a nasty localized hot spot at the flame. That got me thinking I’ve pretty much got everything I need in the garage to make a brake rotor forge. I could probably bang one of those together and buy a bag of charcoal in less time than it takes to track down a fire brick, inswool, and refractory cement. Of course I do have neighbors within throwing distance on all sides… Do you have any advice? Am I overlooking a better method?