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Hello, its been a long while since I last posted on here(been super busy with college and what not), and its been just as long since I've made anything on the forge, due to school and my workshop(the garage) is now full of stuff, so there is no room. I am planning on moving my shop out into the "dog run" on the side of my house, and am excited to get back onto forging. But, the one thing I seem to be missing is a quenching bucket. I have a water bucket, but no oil bucket. I want ideas on what to do for a good, long term, quenching tank/container thing. I will be doing projects that will require plenty of length, and others with width. While I will probably use just a 5 gal steel bucket for some of the items with a wider girth, I still don't know what to do for the long container. I've seen some people use a 4-in diameter pvc pipe help upright with some wood, and I've seen people use old long tool boxes. So to the point! I need help/advice for a good(long/tall) container, and I want to see what you guys have. So this is the time for you to show off your ingenuity, or just your quenching tanks. So have fun sharing your stuff, and thanks in advance for any help you provide. (note: I don't have access to a welder, and would prefer to not have to pay someone to weld it together.)

Is there a proportion of oil to steel as to how much oil to use when quenching? I just want to make sure I will be using enough, since I've never made knives on my own before. If I don't use enough, will the oil get too hot and not harden the steel?

Hello everyone. I am new to blade smithing and a few weeks ago I have built a forge and bought a grinder and all the basic stuff I need. The blade is made from an old rr spike and I have basically finished the blade and I'm ready to quench. However I have quenched the blade twice in some old chain saw oil...the blade didn't harden....three times in motor oil....the blade didn't harden. Then I tried twice in water....the blade still didn't harden. I almost certain I brought the blade up to the proper temperature because it was glowing orange and it lost all magnetism. Despite all my attempts, the blade never hardened. I know that RR spikes have a very low carbon content, but from videos, forums, research, etc, they will harden. I don't understand why I can't get mine to harden. Any suggestions on how to proceed would be very helpful, thank you everyone

heloo people, i am not a real black smith or anything but i am an enthusiastic new metal worker and i make improvised swords and stuff i live in quite an urbanised area but there arent really any advanced hardware stores around, so i usually have to make a barbecue fire or use the kitchen stove and collect junk :D and i dont have access to proper steels. recently i started work on a knife, it normal iron,the type used by welders for making gates and ladders ( its not steel as far as i know) , and i need to harden it as much as i can because right now its not much use as the edge isnt durable, what exactly should i do? i have no access to torches or a forge or power tools, basically im in the medieval times :D what should i use to quench this knife? used motor oil or water ? pleeease help me out i really need help

Hey all, I have been on the site for a little while now and have read a few of the metallurgy books recommended on this site. I have tried to piece the heat treatment process together but I'm still having some trouble understanding. , As far as I am aware, normalizing and annealing reduce stresses caused by forging, additional heat treatments, etc. The differences between them seem to be annealing is done through heating to either at or slightly above critical temperature and then placing the metal in a temp-controlled substance, such as vermiculite, to slow the cooling process. Normalizing is essentially the same thing except the metal is brought to a temperature higher than annealing and the metal is then allowed to air-cool to room temperature. After hardening, tempering is used to reduce some of the brittleness caused by the quench by bringing the metal below critical temperature (for most medium carbon steels I seem to get answers in the brown-blue oxidizing region for this) and then quenching again to prevent additional heat build-up and start the hardening process over again. My first question is do I have my terminology correct? My second question is when is annealing more preferable to normalizing or does one try to use them both when forging, for instance, medium carbon steel? My last question is how many times should one try to use annealing or normalizing during forging? Some will recommend performing these during forging to prevent warping and to prevent cracking when quenching. However, as far as I understand, too many heatings weaken the metal by either decarbonizing it or allowing too much grain growth. I have a propane forge very similar to Larry Zoeller's metal bucket forge only I used an old propane tank instead. I apologize if there is any information I didn't think to put into my question and will add that information when needed.