mark stephen

I gave another quick etch to the letter opener after heat treat.Still have a way to go.

The romans used iron for their spears so using mild steel would be pretty close.Mabey case harden the edges.

It might be 52100,but it might not be.Thats the bad part of working with unknown steels.Bring it up to critical and quench in a thin oil.If you dont have real heat treating oils then a veggy will work.Pre-heat the oil to around 100 F .Temper in your oven at 375f to 400f for an hour.Let it cool and check the edge for brittleness.If its chippy ,put it back in for another hour at 400f.Continue this untill you get what you want for an edge.

Heres a new billet of 1095 and 15n20.188 layers.Still ugly and has to be ground free of scale.

This 275 layer 1095/15n20 hunter is going to my brother this week.

Silica sand was used as a flux when everyone was forge welding true wrought iron and not todays mild steel.The forge welding temps are higher for wrought and the silica would act as borax does with todays mild steels and high carbon steels.

Salt is faster than water?Sorry, but its the other way around.Im taking about heat treatment salts.These are low temp salts used by the steel industry for quenching and tempering certain steels.Quench a piece(i dont care how thin)of 1095 in these salts and you wont harden it because its a slower quench medium than oils(true heat treat oils or veg.oil).Water hardening 1095 is to risky and will most likley cause cracking.Id choose a deep hardening steel for a hammer head.

Made this last week.My first one.

Its 250 layers,random pattern.

I have those days.I call them my" drop everything and set every thing on fire days."

Finished the utility today to put on my table this weekend.

Yes veg.oil is faster.If you look at, say1095s itt chart ,the nose of the curve will tell you if you need water ,oil,or if you can use salts.1095 needs to be quenched fast to harden.I use salts for 0-1 and l-6 only.I use commercial quench oils for everything else.Hope this helps.

250 layers of 1095/15n20,still have to finish this one.

Many steels cant be salt quenched.You would have to have the ITT chart for the steel your quenching to determine if you can use low temp salt as a quench medium.Most scrap steels need a faster quench (5160,1095,)Use a vegatable oil.

I hated my anyang.It gave me nothing but greif from the moment it arrived at my door.Terrible customer service came with it.

Use a low temp. salt set up.Its pretty inexspensive and if you take the time to find out what your doing ,reliable.You can get the salts from Brownells that they sell as a blueing salts .Id stay away from anything that involves water.

Sand as flux works if the material your working with has a very high working temps. like the old bloomery and puddled irons.For todays mild and tool steels it will just cause more problems.Use borax.

Heat treating 0-1 and 4140 are simple and not dangerous.Both are deep hardening steels because of the alloying in both.Bring the 0-1 to 1500f and soak for a couple of mins and quench in 100f-150f oil.Never use water.Tempering should be done right after the quench and the temp. you temper at will depend on the rc hardness you want the final piece.4140 is heated to 1500-1550,soaked,then it is also quenched in oil(100f-150f)again,dont use water.Look on the web for a tempering time/ temp. chart to get an idea of how to achive the final hardness you want in the piece. Salts are better than oils because you can cut down on the shock of quenching and distortion.

I use a combination of bees wax,borax and graphite powder.Melt the wax in a double boiler(one pot in another so the wax does not catch fire)and add the borax and graphite powder .Stir the mess up and shut your heat off.Now coat your punches slitters and drifts.The beeswax is just a medium to attach the graphite to your tools and the borax helps lower the melting point of the scale and keep it flowing out of the hole your punching(slotting,drifting)

Has anyone seen the anchor smiths dvd by Bruce Wilcox?Does anyone sell it in the u.s?

Thanks for the advice but im already making a living at it.

The cost of forging a knife,say from a coil spring or a good file should be dirt cheap.The only thing you would pay for would be the handle material if you dont have any on hand, pin stock,epoxy,and your fuel.The sheath and leather stitching tools or kydex are not bad either.Mostly it comes down to the cost of your labor.Things can get pricey if you move up to making a lot of pattern welded steel.A press or power hammer,the main investment,how good of a belt grinder can you afford ,salt pots high and low temp,ect.,ect.

Here is a new utility im working on.250 layers of 1095/15n20.Thanks for looking.