I thought I'd mentioned this, but can't find a post about it so I must not've. Or the "forum monsters" ate it. Anyway, I decided to purchase and try a couple of new things and thought I'd give a little report on them.

First. I bought a .lb of PCB anit-scale powder from usaknife. It's a very, fine black powder you sprinkle on the blade when it's hot, but before it starts to scale. I did mine at about 600 degrees. It melts into a coating that prevents oxidation. VERY, VERY cools stuff. I'd been making a few things out of O1, and it's a pain in the rear because of the 15 minutes of soak time leads to a ton of scale to clean up. I've been doing the HT in a comp controlled kiln, and have tried charcoal in the oven and that didn't really have any affect. PCB. If you're HT'ing steels that scale real bad this stuff might be worth a look for you. The coating mostly just "pops" off in the quench, what doesn't will come off with a soap and water wash. The steel has no scaling at all, but has cool temper colors. I may try to leave a blade colored this way soon.

Second. I got ahold of a piece of CruForge-V fromt he same source as the PCB. This stuff forges real nice. I think it moves under the hammer better than O1 even. Pre HT grinding and filing are all pretty easy too. I forged a bowie blade from it and normalized in vermiculite three times and was able to file and grind no problem afterwords. This stuff also wants a 15 minute soak at 1500 degrees, though I couldn't find spec.s for the quench temp. I went with the 140 degree oil that I've been using on O1. I used the PCB again and no scale to clean up. After HT, this stuff has lost all respect for abrasives. I'm impressed. It took an incredibly keen edge and I'm eager to cut stuff with it to get an idea of the edge holding ability. If the lack of respect for grinding belts is any indicator, I think I've got a winner here.

The forum wont let me upload pics to my gallery so here's a link to my picassa web album for this bowie. Blade is 7 1/2" flat ground, partial hidden tang, Feric Chloride etch, silicon bronze guard, and Nebraska whitetail handle.

Let me know what you think.

ML

Picasa Web Albums - Mike - bowie_091211#

that's just sick...ya need to send it here so the public won't see it.....very nice,jimmy

very nice i would like to see how it performs

Adam, Was that you and your dad stopped at the welding shop in Fairview?
Ken

Nice work Mike.
Looks like a hamon ? What size type wheel did you decide on. Good to see your work.
Mark

Good looking knife Mike
Stan

Nice looking blade! You did good.

yeah dragon it was us we stopped to look at the mini excavator i believe

adam, Yeh that was me. Are you going to make it down to the guild meeting the 19th?
Am going to try to make that one.
Ken

idk if i will or not i havent been to one in close to a year not had time