Kylemakesstuff

Thanks all, I will take the tips and run with them in my next project. I like the idea about the salt.

Here is the last photo I have of it before the brake and after. I noticed a dark line on my photo of the temper and it seems to be where it broke.

I did, as soon as it quenched it was in the tempering oven with 2 or 3 minutes if not quicker

The edge was around 1-1.5mm thick when quenched. I’ve attached a photo of how it looked after the temper just in case that could shed some light on it.

It was an old file tool originally.

I magnet tested it but it was a more orange than red so that could be one of the reasons

Sorry the tagging was force of habit, it was a reclaimed (scrap) file, normalised it 3 times, the temp was an even bright orange across the blade (don’t have anything to test temp with) quenched in canola oil, and tempered at 200c for around 2 hours, when the steel was spark tested it did show high carbon but to be honest I am unsure of what steel it was. Also never forged it cold (below red in colour)

Sedona looks like there was a crack in the blade, the temper seemed strange as different parts came out different colours (most parts were straw but patches were purple)

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?