ds99

The 70 deg is fahrenhiet it refers to the air temp needed for these to self combust (again also needs to be les than .02 in cross section) so say you have a bunch of this dust and its 50 deg F in youre shop nothing will happen if the temp in your shop goes up to above 70 deg F then it can self ignite....now this does not guarantee it will self ignite there has got to be other variables i guess because i have rolled my grinder out side ground some zirconium and i always use the air compressor to blow off the grinder and the cart its on before i bring it inside but the other day it was hot out deffinitly above 70 so i left it outside for a while and nothing self ignited so not sure what makes it do it sometimes and not other times but i have been told the cross section needs to be less than .02 and the temp needs to be above 70 deg F for it to kick off so take it for whats its worth.....i am going to bring grinder band saw and even a small drill press out side when working it i would rather be safe than sorry

yes i was told anything with a cross section of .02 or smaller can spontaneously combust if the temp his higher than 70 deg. i have put one of my grinders and a small drill press on a cart to work the stuff outside my band saw also has wheels that comes out too then i blow everything off and keep it clean before it comes back inside

maybe i worded it wrong the zirconium that gets the 1200 heat is for part of the handle on a folder not the blade

yeh i know all about the dangers grinding cutting and drilling milling ect...also know about the use's the military use it for from what i read the most common use for it is in grenades...i would love to have a few of them! i actually have had this bar for a while and just recently i mounted one of my grinders and drill press on a rolling cart so i can bring it out side and work on it.....i was able to polish it and heat with a torch to get a very shiny black with a lil green hue to it looks great but the knife i have planed (aactually want this one for myself) will have mokuti bolsters and zirconium for the rest of the handle Oh on a folder.....So what i am after is a flat black i talked with another maker and he told me to sand blast it and do 3 cycles in the oven at 1200deg for 20 mins each time and then coat it in 3in 1 oil.....the way it came out of the oven each cycle got darker but it almost looked black in the background with what looked like lite rust on it....so i kept going when i got done and rubed it with oil SOME of that rusty color dissapeered and it turned much darker but there is still enough of this rusty color to make it completely UN acceptable so now i am kinda stumped again

Hey guys so i have had a bar of zirconium for a while didn't use it as i didn't want to burn down the house :-) so now i have the option to move equipment outside so i want to start experimenting .....i know the finish obviously effects the end product but what i am interested in is the coloring or blackening i have heard this done in a heat treat oven but i cant find anywhere the temp range it takes to do it. i assume its going to take a playing with to get it how i like but i don't know where to start even if i had the low temp i could work up....can anyone help?

Hey guys so i have a question i have been using some dama steel and looking at there website and spec sheet the tempering temps seem low around 345 F However looking around on some of the forums people seem to be tempering much higher at around 450 and even 500.....now yes i know the higher temp just makes the steel a lil softer i am just wondering for those of you out there that do use damasteel where do you normally temper it and about what is the resulting hardness? Thanks ahead of time!

Well theo you showed it to me at your shop last week when it wasnt assembled yet and it looked good then but man putting it all togather it just looks beautiful! cant wait to see your next WIP when i visit

forget about about good for firsts those are just GOOD!!! awesome awesome work..... Just to touch on what JHCC had said about taking pics another piece of real REAL good advice i was given was to get some PVC pipe 1/2 - 1 inch in diamter now you lay the knife on the table and you use this PVC pipe to make a frame about 2-3 feet wide and a couple feet wide (you could use almost anythjing in the place of the pvc its just to make a frame basicly) then you stretch some white tissue paper over that frame and use extra piece's of pvc or what ever to hold it up now what you want to do is hold that frame above the knife and put the lighting so it has to go through the tissue paper and to the knife then shoot the pic from the front. basicly what your trying to do is difusse the light through the tissue paper that way you wont get bright spots and reflections it dones wonders with all pics but esspecially anything you polish give it a try you might be suprised....i was

haha Charles i may just take you up on that offer....i am actually curious as to how SOMEONE else besides me really works it hard i have only sold and gifted a couple of folders and no one has complained i use mine the first one i carried i beat up the second one not so much its got moku ti and a beautiful dama steel blade i like it to much. I did send one of my knives to a guy that has been helping me from day 1 knife making and he said it was very solid and well constructed coming from him that means a lot ....but he only had a day or 2 with it so he didnt beat it up that much....like i said i beat one up and i think its solid but would like some one else to do so as well....you may be getting a message from me Charles when the next batch is done :-)

Thanks every one...What i have always done is when i use a new steel i follow the spec sheet and go to a target of around 60 and of corse check with my hardness tester then i finish out the knife (fairly quickly as it will not be sold its a test) i will then first i use the knife AS A KNIFE SHOULD BE USED!!!! cutting carboard rope all sorts of things the whole time i am keeping track of ecxactly how much i am cutting and noting how the knife dulls... after that what i do is ABUSE the knife...now as makers we all know what a knife should be used for and what it shoudnt but i think we also know that some of our customers will not listen to us and they will start battoning a small knife through something or use the tip as a pry bar....Ok i blame forged in fire for this i even had a customer take a fixed blade i made and he went and bought a big brass bolt and layed the edge on the bolt and took a hammer to the spine!! then he wanted to know why the edge got messed up! so yeh after i do real world tests i abuse it and see how much it will take... depending on how things perform if i started at a hardness of 60 i will make another at a 61 or 59 and repete the tests, after i find where a knife has a good hardness AND holds up best for my testing then my heat treat gets adjusted to make that knife again.. some times i play with things another maker gave me a tip for s35vn that involves quenching in oil till black then hanging it in a pipe with a seam in it length wise (like a vent pipe) and blowing air through that seam that work great... i usually start with a hardness of 60 unless the spec sheet hints to something different but i had read with this steel it should be slightly lower but it didnt say how much lower ill just do what what i have been doing its worked good so far

i just google it and well it seems you either drop a ball and let it hit the steel from a certain height or a ball swings on a penjulum to hit the steel....from the pics and video i saw what they were using would have to be heavily modified for our uses do you have any links to any info on how to make one or are there rigs out there to buy cheap enough...not going to buy or start making one today but deffinitly need to get more info on the subject

never even herd of a charpy test rig..

yeh your right the harde you make them the longer it will hold its edge but when you do sharpen its harder to sharpen if the steel is softer it will be easy to sharpen but you will have to do it mor often....usually there is kinda of a window not a exact target like say 60.2 but from 1 steel to another one may have peek toughness and performance higher at say 60.5-61 others may be at 59.....i have a hardness testeer so i can use that to know the exact hardness and ill just have to test the blades at different hardness levels to see how they re act (same thing i did in the past for s35vn)

Hey guys i have been using s35vn 440c damasteel and other stainless Damascus even used vanax but i just cut 2 folding knife blades from elmax. i have seen the spec sheets and different heat treat charts that are out there so i have a good idea of how to get it to different hardness but no where did i find a "target" harness some steels work better than others at certain hardness so i am wondering what my target should be for these 2 folders. Has anyone used this steel and tested it and figured this out? any info/advice would be appreciated!

thanks guys! i think this is going to just take some experimenting like making it and carrying the knife and make sure it can take the abuse...... the bearings them self are .0625 thick and you dont want them level with the titanium you want them a lil proud to keep a lil room between the knife and the titanium so if i was to drill all the way through the titanium and have the handle material back the bearings i would have to use .0425 titanium as i usually leave them about .02 proud and that is very thin titanium for a liner also i dont think the bearings would ride quite as smoothly or as fast resting on the handle material...when it runs on titanium obviously the titanium is softer but it runs a lil "track" on the titanium and it gives the balls a nice smooth track to run on...you can put a hardened washer in there and they would run even better but i am trying to shrink things adding a washer would do the opposite and they ride really good on the titanium so if it aint broke dont fix it,,,,,, either way thanks for the advice guys i think like so many other things in knife making trial and error is going to prove the best method