Rich Hale Posted September 17, 2012 Share Posted September 17, 2012 In a little over a month we will begin our knife chat in the chat area of this site. For my portion of the begginning of these sessions I will use found steel for a blade. This hads somereal draw backs. Itmay not have enough carbon for a blade.It may have cracks. And inalot of cases the dreive to locate suitable steel may end up costin time and fuel that exceed the value of wot yoiu end up with.Itjustmay be better to have a piece of known steel shipped to yoir house. That said: I friend gave me a coil spring from and old large station wagon. To determine its suitability for ablade and to determine how to heat treat it I did the following:. I cut a piece nine inches long from one end i straightened the piece out and forge one end flat for several inches thin enough to be a blade. I did not bother to form bevels. i brought this piece up to non magnetic and let it air cool enough to handle with bare hands. I tested with a file after removing the top layer of scale. The file did not skate acroos.it wazs avble to remove metal. This showed me it did not air harden. i need that information later in making a blade. i thennormalized this piece three times by first heating to a little bit above non magnetic and air coolling tillbalck but still too hot to handle with bare hands I did it once again but at a color not as bright as the first , lLet cool as before..Then a last time at a color not as red as the second one. There are specific heats you can review for the temps of the steel for each heat. This piece is a way for new folks to use to get started. This works. You can fine tune later if you wish. I preheated my contaner of automotive atf oil to one hundred and ten degrees f.Checked with a thermometor. i heated the piece onceagain until amagnetdid not stick. REmember thatg color. Youi will lose someofit when the magnet touches the steel and during the t4imeit takes for the magnet test. Take the steel back to that color and go straight down into the oil. I do not move the steel side to side. I push it deeper into the oil and with deraw it but notso far that the blade leaves the oil. Caution: The oil will likely flare up. Glove will protect your hand as well as a long pair of tongs. If the container is almost full but not quite you will not slop burning oil on shop floor. That will also lete you hold the tang a t an angle rather than in line with the blade and that helps keep away from the flames. When you feel the steel has lost most of its heat.remove it from oil. A hinged lid on the container can be flipped into place and suffocate any left over flames. Now I know the rest of this coil spring will make a blade I can trust..And I have found a heat treat method that works for this spring. Other springs or found steel may be different. But this method will help you see wot you have. Keep an eyhe on Keeping you informed area of main page in about three weeks for the dates we will begin knife chat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted September 17, 2012 Author Share Posted September 17, 2012 I will go sit in the corner and wear my oft used pointy hat for making the pics so large. In the meantime if youi reduce your screen from 100% to 50% in lower right hand corner,,(at least onmine) it may help a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quint Posted September 17, 2012 Share Posted September 17, 2012 Hope ya dont mind but resized the pics for ya. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted September 17, 2012 Author Share Posted September 17, 2012 Quint that is really nice of youi..I thoight I had them small enough til I tried to see them..again thanks...Knives Iknow,,puters not so much,,,, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quint Posted September 17, 2012 Share Posted September 17, 2012 No problem, hey was wondering do you like that peen side of the hammer to be that broad or full however you want to say it, all of the hammers I have are much sharper (for lack of better word) just curious if that helps you move the metal around at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted September 17, 2012 Share Posted September 17, 2012 I'm not a knife guy, no secret there but I do occasionally make a blade. Are you going to continue the test procedure to indicate what are proper tempering colors? I make a coupon of the mystery steel by forging it to less than 1/8" thick by 1/2"+ wide and a good 6-8" long. Length depends on how much a mystery it is. I bring it to critical temp and quench in oil. Then in an as quenched state I clamp it in a vise with about 1" exposed and give it an easy whack with a light hammer. I expect it to snap off and use adequate precautions, mainly aimed AWAY from anything I don't want damaged. If it doesn't snap I move it up an inch and whack it harder to see if it'll bend. Typically it breaks in an as quenched state so I proceed to test tempers by heating the parent metal and let the temper colors run, stopping it when there is a good spread of my favorite colors, pale straw to blue. After tempering I repeat the hammer/vise test to determine what state the steel is in after hardening at specific temper colors. I don't know if I'll hang at the chats, I've never been much for chats and after the tree got me it's just too chaotic to keep track of. That and I'm not a knife guy but I do like controlling my tool steel. I also don't know what use my tests will be if any but . . . Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted September 18, 2012 Author Share Posted September 18, 2012 Actually Frosty I had planned on sticking it in the oven for tempering,,but my part of the start of this will be to show how to make a knife using few tools, I will for sure heat a piece of steel and lay the blade shaped object on it and see if I can get a good pic of the colors when they do as I hope. Thank you! After hardening that piece i put it in a leaather glove and clamped it in the vice,,about an inch and pull the upper p art with bolt tongs toward me a bit and it snapped. I will try and get nice pics of the broken ends for the knfe chat....Have a few other things in mind to cover before we actually make the blade.. A log of the chats will be posted in the forums and anyone is welcome to post thoughts in there..after a set period of time we may close that option out. However each one will remain open long enough so anyones schedule will allow them to see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted September 18, 2012 Share Posted September 18, 2012 Why do you touch the steel with the magnet? Magnets stop being magnetic after getting heated up too much. Some are more resistant to heat than others, with ceramic magnets being among the most resistant to heat. Flexible strip magnets are plastic, and most chrome plated magnets will start to disintegrate if they touch red hot steel. I use a strong magnet, like a ceramic donut available at Radio shack, 5 for about $3, hang it from a thin copper wire such as the inside of a telephone cord or network cable, and pass the item closely below the hanging magnet. If the magnet swings naturally the steel is non-magnetic, if the magnet is attracted it is still magnetic. I hang my magnet from the loop of the handle of my hand truck, so it is at a convinient height, near the forge, and available when I need it. (I also need my hand truck to move the shop out onto the driveway, and put the shop away, so I just leave it attached.) The steel of the hand truck is far enough away that it is not a problem. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted September 18, 2012 Author Share Posted September 18, 2012 Phil basically lcuz it works well for me..I have used this same magnet for well over a decade and it is like new. it is aboiut fouir inches long and I set it on top of anvil with a third hangin off on the side near the forge. I do not see any reason for either me or you to change wot works for us.l Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K. Bryan Morgan Posted September 18, 2012 Share Posted September 18, 2012 I just use a cow magnate. Cost $1.27. At that price I don't care if it lasts forever. But it will most likely outlast me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadHatter Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 Drill a hole in the end of a 5 inch length of broomstick, the diameter of your cow magnet, shove it in there, great handle for the magnet! Keeps your hand away from the heat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Forgive me but i need a recap. A). so hot filing steel and result = metal shavings, that means lack of carbon? Or that means that it requires hardening? What does this mean? B). Hardening ... since it doesnt air harden that only leaves hardening by oil? im confused on the reasoning behind or how you know this section of the post.. Thanks.. noobies need a better understanding sorry for the trouble! gabe Not hot filing, after the hardening quench, If a file will cut..... who said only oil ??? Read the sticky on Heat treating Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metal99 Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 ive read that before i was just trying to grasp what Rich was saying, and the reasoning behind it. I believe Rich was making sure it didn't air harden, which it didn't. So that's why he moved to oil. After the oil quench it was hard so there was no need to go to water then brine. When your testing mystery steels out its a good plan to start with the mildest quench and that would be air. Hope that helps man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted October 22, 2012 Author Share Posted October 22, 2012 Gabe this process may be real tough for you. Wot we will do is show everyone a few ways to make a knfe. We will in no way be able to explain each and every fine detail involved in every step. This is a simple tutorial and that of course will not replace the excellent material in the forums or that you can purchase. This by no means will leave you out. Follow along and see if you can repeat the weeks work as well as you can. There are simply no short cuts that you can take that will allow you to forge anything and that includes blades if yoiu do not fire the forge and change shapes of metal. On this forum there are many ways to fill in blanks: The heat treat stickies are vital. And to supplement that there have been about a bazillion questions posted in the knife forum and each of them has several answers posed. If you spend an hour a day in review for those two sitres and as any hours as yoiu can at the forge youi will catch up. The reference i gave you about the blueprints will allow you learn how metal moves depending on wot shape hammer you use and wot part of the anvil does its part. In addtion to info on this site i reccommend a couple of books: The fifty dollar knife shop by Wayne Goddard and the Complete Bladesmith by Jim Hirousalas Shoudl be in your shop. Follow along and see where this series takes you. If we get ahead of you keep working. For the fine details reread wot i printed above. When the seriesbegins i will have a lot of hours into it every week. That may not leave me time to write long answers for details. We will give present methods and ideas to help a large group. We do expect that a lot of folks will gain from our efforts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 getting back to the real topic here, the Heat treating already has 2 sections for that. We can not help people that refuse to read what we have posted. read all you can, Then ask us the details you dont understand thats is good, But remember all we have here is the written word. It is hard to help when a person says they read something, but they then show up clueless about the nights topic because they really didnt read, it gets confusuing, and makes those that did make some personal effort have to wait. example: Some state they did follow the suggestied guidelines, then tell us they dont know what steel they used, and get mad as us for not giving them a simple temp to forge or get it hardened. If you dont know we can only guess and give you experiments to try to get it hard. Most the time this works well also. If not then it is not our fault, sorry. known steels equal known time and temps, unknown steel is a crap shoot. Also you have to have some basic skill sets to be able to understand some of the answers. We will start at the beginning and give you all the answers that we can, and progress from there. If you choose to skip or not read "simpler and basic" chats nights, then that is your right, but dont expect us to stop chats to go back and catch you up on what you chose to ignore as we presented it, Please read up in the forum to catch up and be ready. This happened many times the first series of knife chats. We had some only show up once a month, and demand we stop the class so they can catch up, We will not stop the chats for that this time. If it not important enough to those attending to follow along, or read in the forum reposts of these sessions, then they cant really care that much. so I wont make the others wait for them to get up to speed. We are all adults, please act like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick L. Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 Gabe, Just a quick observation, Rich said he started with a coil spring. This would tell me it has carbon for sure and he's looking for the proper medium to quench in. Air ,oil or water Not everyone would know it I guess but it is a good thing to know. Dick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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