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Times heat treat


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I have read a lot of discussion about tempering and drawing a straw color in the knife or using an oven and letting it set for an hour in 400 degree heat. What benefit is it for the knife to be warm for an hour vs usin a small torch to draw a wheat color into the knife. Could someone explain this or give me a good website to read about different heat treating processes

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An advantage of using a torch is that you can draw a softer temper on the knife spine. A DISadvantage is that it takes a lot of patience and very close attention to do it well. Oven tempering is much more forgiving. Use of a heated bar of heavy steel to temper with is a bit less difficult than using a torch and faster.

Have you read/studied the heat treat stickies here? They are quite comprehensive.

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Unsalted there are a alot of things to help you learn about heat treat,You may know most of them already. However there is not a better way at all than in your shop. Make two blades a like of the same steel and temper each one of them differently. One in oven and other with a torch. Then check out the abs web site for a standard testing procedure for a blade. Test both of those blades and decide which method you wish to write down for that kind of steel in the future. When you change steels you will need to test again. This is just not something youi can read about an know!, I am not a fan of using colors for judging heat of a steel. Youi and I and whoever wrote wotever you read before may see or describe colors a little differently. And in the heat treat stickies mentioned above pay attention to steels that are shallow or deep hardening.

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one of the main aspects to think about when heat treating is repeatability.
their are serious repeatability advantages with having temperature control over using a torch.
the old adage :-

"test what you do and then do what you tested"

is a good statement for heat treating.

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