Taylor Made Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 I was wondering if anyone can tell me why when I try to anneal my forged 1095 blades after 2 normalizing cycles it warps on me. I forge my blade, no warps at all. Normalize, allow to cool to black on a piece of kaowool, normalize again with the same process. Back in forge one more time but instead of pulling back out, I turn off forge, plug opening with kaowool and let cool very slowly. Blade is still warm to touch next morning, so I know it has cooled very slowly. But it warps every time! A little help guys. Do I even need to anneal if I am normalizing after forging? Seems like the metal is a little hard to sand and polish if I don't anneal. I have also tried annealing in wood ash in a large barrel, lots of wood ash! It still warps! I am stumped! Any help would be appreciated Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MLMartin Posted November 2, 2012 Share Posted November 2, 2012 Are you forging a bevel on the blade? If so and it is pretty uneven one side to another that would make it cool faster in one direction. I think it would have to be very off for that to bend the blade though. I do know that leaving it in the forge to cool can bend the blade as one side touching the bottom will stay hot much longer because the masonry floor will stay hot much longer than the air in the forge. I would think that the wood ash would be the best bet. I would simply press it back flat cold after you anneal it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taylor Made Posted November 2, 2012 Author Share Posted November 2, 2012 Thanks for the info ML Martin. That is what I have been doing. I just wish it didin't warp at all. It seems like I am doing something wrong, but I guess that is just part of it. Only reason why I mess with annealing at all is because it seems to help a little bit in sanding and getting the blade ready to heat treat. I think the normalizing softens it up a little bit, just not as much as doing a full anneal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McClellan Made Blades Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 Taylor Made, My advice would be to do 90 to 95% of the hand sanding BEFORE HT! I have seen the same thing with all of the 10XX steels, really thought they were hard until I had to do some hand sanding on some ATS-34, which is the Japanese equivalent to CPM154. Now that stuff is hard as Superman's knee caps! But seriously, I am almost all self taught ( I have had a lot of help from Forums like this one and primarily Knifedogs and one other guy) and after destroying several blades taking it back to the grinder after HT, I decided that if I couldn't get the scratch out it was a'gonna stay! And since doing that, a couple of things have happened, one - tennis elbow is a lot closer to flairing up during daily activities, I tend to do a really great job at handsanding BEFORE it goes in the kiln, because I really don't want to do all of that handsanding and one more thing, my success rate went way up! If your dead set on annealing it, I'd say to get some....(here is where my dain bramage flares up) of that red looking stuff that is used for annealing, I can't recall the name right now, it's not great stuff to have aound the shop if you really don't need it, as it is Carcinogenic. It'll come to me, about the time I go to bed tonight, I'll be laying there with the wife and blurt it out, get a WTH look, and then have to explain it, well, not so much as I used to, she has gotten used to my retarded ways. From my experience, with 1095, as long as your not forging and grinding too thin, you shouldn't have a problem with either, although I rarely anneal, I do normalize 3x's, some time 4 or 5, depending on how hot I had to get it. I have some 1095 from Aldo Bruno, it's some old stuff he has had for a while. This stuff is 3/8th's inches thick! It is a bear to forge by hand, my Tire Hammer does do very well on it, but I still have to get it noticebly hotter than other steels, to feel it moving under hammer, and then it's very slow going. How thick are you taking it to before annealing? I generally will leave my edge about .2 (2/10th's) with plenty of meat behind it before HT just because I don't want to have to deal with the warping, bending problems, I am not trying to make a living with this either, and I don't mind rubbing on a blade for a lot of hours! I have been wanting to make another big chopper and this time leave the entire blade at a convex edge , slack grind the entire thing! I have thought that would be cool, maybe something a little different, until I found out that the Japanese made several of their blades that way. I'm still going to do it, my reasons for doing it is because I believe that with added steel left in the blade, coupled with a clay coated spine during HT, it should be a super tough blade, should be that is. A fairly simple way to see if you really need to anneal before you HT is to try doing as much of your hand sanding done before you HTing it, then at what ever grit you stopped at, say around 400, go back to some where around 220- 320 after you temper it, whatever your comfortable with and finish it up, you may have to go a bit lower to get the scale off, unless you want to use the white vinegar trick, then you won't have to worry about scale. Do a couple of test blades, write down everything you do differently, keep like a log book or diary about what all you changed in your normal pocess, take notes of the pro's and the con's. I keep 2 or 3 notebooks in the shop all the time, and 1 dedicated to HTing, since I started doing that one thing, it has helped me tremendously. Remember all steels...., heck NO steels are created equally, they are ALL created a little differently, so you may have to dial in the HT on every batch of steel you get in. Of course they should all be fairly close, to your regular process, but sometimes they can be way off. This BLACK MAGIC know as metalurgy! Too much fun! Hope this helps and if I can help any more just give me a holler, Rex The red stuff was called Vermiculite! But if you can find a way NOT to use it, don't! It's bad stuff to have around, esecially if you have small kids around. Wear your respirator when ever you're putting a blade in or taking it out, it is seriously BAD stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 Why are you fearing Vermiculite ? I have been using it for years, never heard about anything about it, Please include facts to back this up, inquiring minds want to know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 Vermiculite is totally ok; it's the asbestos that is found along with it in some mines that causes trouble. Wikipedia: "Although not all vermiculite contains asbestos, some products were made with vermiculite that contained asbestos until the early 1990s. Vermiculite mines throughout the world are now regularly tested for it and are supposed to sell products that contain no asbestos. The former vermiculite mine in Libby, Montana, did have tremolite asbestos as well as winchite and richterite (both fibrous amphiboles) — in fact, it was formed underground through essentially the same geologic processes as the contaminants. A vermiculite mine in Virginia has also been found to be contaminated by asbestos." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 If I remember my geology. Asbestos is in the layer between the MIca and Gypsum, maybe we should all tear the walls out of our houses in that case. Thanks Thomas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 One thing that jumps out at me in your start to this thread is that when you lay a heated blade on the kao wool...That allows one side to cool at a different rate in time than the other. To me and this is from gut feeling,,that leaves stress in the blade. Doing the same way twice is unlikely to remove that stress. When i normalixe a blade i hold it by tongs on the tang. and hold it still until the color is gone..i usually do this twice depending on the steel. Then i anneal and I use vermiculite. This has worked for me for a lot of years...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted November 7, 2012 Share Posted November 7, 2012 The annealing should release ALL stress; the normalizing is for grain refinement (for steels that profit from it) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McClellan Made Blades Posted November 8, 2012 Share Posted November 8, 2012 Wow, guys, speaking for myself only, there are some seriously smart dudes, here! I was only given a fearful warning about Vermiculite, and coming from the fella that gave it to me, I just took it as gospel, because he is the no non-sense kind of guy and he says, "don't do some thing" or, "to do something" I didn't question him, all I CAN remember is that the setting was with other knife makers and Blacksmiths, who all agreed, I'm a dumbXXXXX Newb, (yes after 4 years, I still feel that way),and I aint gonna question a guy that I know, knows what he's talking about! Sure wish I could remember his name! I do believe it was at, Batson's Bladesmithing Symposium. He was sitting with a guy that I can recall his name, as I have done a little business with hm. I think it was, Wayne Coe. An artisan Blacksmithing, Knife making, grinder building, treadle hammer building, forge building and seller of all kinds of knife making related stuff! Including forge building supplies, motors with or w/o matching VFD's. All around pretty good guy, it could have been Wayne that told me that, about the Vermiculite. Y'all please bear with me, I do joke about the "Dain Bramage", but that is how I've gotten through a pretty tough time in my life, by laughing at everything I could including, and especially myself. I still joke about it, I guess because it's so XXXXXX frustrating, and at times just about makes me crazy. I did remember that it was Carcinogenic! See, something like that, stuck! But, why? How? Don't ask me about something that happened yesterday, but then again, I may be able to recall it, with knifemaking it seems a lot more stuff sticks, don't know why, or how, it may be because it's the second thing I'm most passionate about, (the first is my family), that passion that drives me to keep going, through what seems like even more difficult times, than in the past. I'll do my best to give good info, as I'd hate to give anyone bad info, but like I always say, there are many ways to make a knife, and only 1 right way, and that is the way you make a knife, the best! I can only promise to give you guys the best I have, now I may not be able to back up whatever point I'm making and if that's a problem, I'll try to make it a point to be able to. I would prefer, to go by own experiences. But that would limit my knowledge base, as I have been studying knifemaking for a long, L O N G time! So there is info I have that I've learned by reading, I should say studying it, which may only help the individual find the info he needs. Now about the original problem, I really see several things that were pointed out here that could be parts of the problem, I like what Mr. Rich Hale says, that makes perfect sense, when cooling during normalizing, like most folks I hold it, (yes I do point it North, feel pretty silly doing it, but like I told my son, it doesn't hurt nothing to do it, and who knows? The old timers that came up with that may have known something we don't!?) when I do my last cycle I have a ceramic blade holder I put mine it edge up spine down on the ceramic. Taylor Made, You might want to try a test blade with out laying it on the Caolwool and see how it does, that does sound to me like it could be the biggest factor in your process. Also, maybe try leaving it a little bit thicker, a let us know how it goes. Sorry I got so long here guys, it usually takes me a few more words to get my thoughts out, and I try to be carefull how I word stuff, so I'll just stop right here, if I can be of help, just give me a holler, RexMod edited to remove profainity as per IFI ToS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taylor Made Posted January 10, 2013 Author Share Posted January 10, 2013 Thanks I really appreciate it! I usually normalize twice after forging to rifine the grain and on the third heat I anneal to make it easier to work before HT. I do it all by hand with files, you know draw filing. Lots of work and all hand sanding. So I want the steel as soft as I can get it. Maybe I will try the vermiculite. Been trying to anneal in the forge and in wood ash. Maybe I am not using enough ash. I will try the vermiculite. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taylor Made Posted January 10, 2013 Author Share Posted January 10, 2013 One thing that jumps out at me in your start to this thread is that when you lay a heated blade on the kao wool...That allows one side to cool at a different rate in time than the other. To me and this is from gut feeling,,that leaves stress in the blade. Doing the same way twice is unlikely to remove that stress. When i normalixe a blade i hold it by tongs on the tang. and hold it still until the color is gone..i usually do this twice depending on the steel. Then i anneal and I use vermiculite. This has worked for me for a lot of years...... Thanks Rich! I read somewhere that this was the best way to normalize because it doesn't allow the heat from your blade to sink into the anvil while normalizing. But what you said makes perfect sense! The side down on the kaowool is cooling much slower than the side that is up! This is probably my problem! I will try just holding it with my tongs and annealling in some vermiculite. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taylor Made Posted January 10, 2013 Author Share Posted January 10, 2013 The annealing should release ALL stress; the normalizing is for grain refinement (for steels that profit from it) So are you saying I should just anneall after forging. Grind, then normalize x 3 and HT? Thanks Rex. I will definitely try holding it with my tongs and I like the pointing north thing! Worth a shot anyway! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.