high carbon steel heat quenching

[saintjohnbarleycorn]

This has probably been asked before, many times. I have some rake tines that are likely to be .9 carbon. I don't think they have anything else in them. They are probably from the 40's or before. I am making some simple wood carving knives out of them. I am heating to non=magnetic then quench in water. Then sharpen and the use a torch to temper to a dark blue. This method is working well enough.
My question is with this type of steel will I be making an improvement with using a toaster oven to heat to 350F or so and also will I see a positive difference with the heat and cooling of the blade more than once?

These are simple blades hand forged and small, about 3" long one inch wide to a point and about 1/8" or so thick.

thanks for any advice on this. kevin

[ThomasPowers]

Changing the temperature you temper at will change the piece: lower temps will make the edge harder but more brittle. Higher temps will make the edge softer but tougher. Now I can't answer what works best for YOU! But if you do a bunch of this sort of thing you may want to do a set of them and draw temper to different temps/colours for each one and see what YOU like best.

Pretty much basic junkyard steel rules; gotta test to see what works for that item or that alloy.

Multiple temper cycles are suggested. Multiple hardening cycles are not save for some particular alloys and plain 10xx steels are not ones that profit.

For myself I will sometimes oven temper at the temp I want the edge and then go back and draw back the body with a torch to get it softer/tougher.

Remember the whole idea of making *custom* tools is that they *can* be different just to suit the customer!

[saintjohnbarleycorn]

ok, looks like experimentation is the key here. thanks for the reply. kevin