32-inch pointy thing completely successfull fail

[FieryFurnace]

OK so I like small swords. (not like little swords......small-swords)

 

So I forged out a long pointy thing with a v-shape blade.

 

It turned out really nice. About a 31-inch blade, shaped like angle iron, (instead of a solid hollow ground triangle,) It had a full tang and I was very pleased. With a bit of polishing it looked really good. The blade and full tang weighed about 16-ounces. (1-pound)

 

So it was ready for hardening. I set up a make shift, wood fired, sword forge (4 concrete blocks, pipe with holes, and air source all laid on the ground outside of the shop.

I heated the blade to an even temperature all of the way down (very even, I was particular,) and quenched in oil (leaf spring material.) You all know what's coming. It came out warped. It warped in the direction of the inside of the V of the blade, not the other way. 

 

I hoped this could be straightened after tempering.

 

So I re-polished and tempered. I used the open wood fire coals to temper, running the blade well above the fire back and forth until I got an even dark bronze all of the way down.

 

I then tried using a rubber hammer over a hollow in my burn stump to straighten the blade. I wish I'd had the camera on record because you could have heard the steel laugh at me.

This called for more extreme measures like over the hardy hole on the anvil. All to no avail.

 

Next was the post vise, flexing the blade. I tried flexing from several points, and ended up busting the end. I should have done a second temper or ran the first one a bit farther. However, the blade flexed something like 45 degrees before busting, and it returned true every time before it busted.

 

So the bummer is it broke. However, I couldn't be more pleased with the actual blade and the uniformity of the temper and the amount of flex I achieved.

 

Here are some pics.

 

 

 

 

 

I've got other work that will be keeping me busy but I hope to start my next blade in the afternoons. I will continue to use scrappy spring as I have it available. My steel yard sells new 5160 and I can get drops of round stock from them as well.

 

Thoughts, critiques, suggestions welcome!

[Robakyo]

Too bad about it breaking. It was looking good. The thing about using oil is that after the quench, you have a window of opportunity to straighten the blade. I was very surprised by the malleability of the steel after the quench. I used gloves after the first few times I tried this.  :lol: 

 

Did you normalize it before you hardened it? Not only does normalizing refine the grain structure of the steel, but from what I've come to understand from reading on IFI, it also reduces the chance of excessive warping. 

 

I'd really like to see your heat treating set-up. It sounds like a successful design. Something I really need to use.

 

Robert

[ThomasPowers]

Dark bronze is quite a bit harder for leaf spring material than I would expect to be able to deal with a set in that cross section.

[FieryFurnace]

I did normalize three times prior to heat treating.

[Robakyo]

Considering that you did normalize the blade three times, I suppose that the cross-section has a lot to do with its' tendency to warp. 

 

I attempted to straighten a blade once during the tempering process, by clamping the blade to a piece of steel, with mediocre results.

 

IIRC Basher offered advice to another member here about straightening a blade immediately after an oil quench. He explained why this is possible, but I am too much of a novice to remember what the technical terms were. But by following his advice, I had excellent results.   Robert

[Stormcrow]

Long blades have a tendency to warp, and the shape may have contributed.  If you don't get it flexed straight during the window of opportunity after the quench, run it through your first temepring cycle and then follow this method:

 

Take a flat piece of stock thick enough it's not going to flex much, and a couple of spacers.  I use flat washers.  Put one washer on either side of the warp, then lay the stock across them so that it has a gap between it and the blade.  Then use a C-clamp and flex the warped part of the blade toward the flat stock, a little past the center line.  Then, with everything clamped together, run it through the second temepring cycle.  After that, unclamp and check for straightness.  If need be, clamp it again a little tighter and run it through your third tempering cycle.  You can repeat past that, but most of them are fixed by the end of the third cycle, which is how many tempering cycles my blades get anyway. 

 

This is a technique I learned from Rick Marchand, who's a decent enough fellow for a Canadian.  It's saved me a lot of hassle and heartache.

[FieryFurnace]

Long blades have a tendency to warp, and the shape may have contributed.  If you don't get it flexed straight during the window of opportunity after the quench, run it through your first temepring cycle and then follow this method:

 

Take a flat piece of stock thick enough it's not going to flex much, and a couple of spacers.  I use flat washers.  Put one washer on either side of the warp, then lay the stock across them so that it has a gap between it and the blade.  Then use a C-clamp and flex the warped part of the blade toward the flat stock, a little past the center line.  Then, with everything clamped together, run it through the second temepring cycle.  After that, unclamp and check for straightness.  If need be, clamp it again a little tighter and run it through your third tempering cycle.  You can repeat past that, but most of them are fixed by the end of the third cycle, which is how many tempering cycles my blades get anyway. 

 

This is a technique I learned from Rick Marchand, who's a decent enough fellow for a Canadian.  It's saved me a lot of hassle and heartache.

 

 

Neat trick! Thanks! I'm working on a much shorter blade in my spare time, but it will be a few days before I can get to heat treating. We'll see!

[FieryFurnace]

This is the heat treating "forge."

 

 

 

 

Hook up a blower and it works like a charm.

[Hilt and Hammer Workshop]

 Applause to your efforts ! I too am very much a fan of small-swords ,although I like the earlier diamond cross section as opposed to the trianular blades. Very good looking though,from what I could see in your photos. Did you use any special hardy tools to get that crisp groove down the top? Your "heat treating forge" is marvelous in the way that it proves that it's not about the fancy tools,but care and skill .

[FieryFurnace]

Just an el-cheapo swage block from ebay and a spring steel hand held top fuller.

[Chance]

hey now stromcrow  some of us Canadians are sensitive . not me but some . nice look to bad for the brake . used 5160 can some times do strange things like have the old spring arch show up

[Sam Salvati]

Take Mr Helm's advice, utilize the window of opportunity right after the quench while the oil is still smoking on the blade to straighten, a 7-mississippi count in your oil then out to the open ready vice for tweaking. the transformation to full hard steel takes time.

[Stormcrow]

Sam - I have broken blades trying to straighten within that window, so I'm kind of leery of that.  If it doesn't seem to be straightening out pretty immediately, then I'll use the clamped-while-tempering method.  Or if it's pretty bad, just re-heat, straighten, and re-harden.

 

Chance - Aw, I got nothing against Canuckistanians, even if y'all talk funny sometimes.  Y'all gotta be tough hombres to deal with the kind of cold and snow I see on T.V.  :D  I mostly give Rick a hard time as a nod to a mutual friend of ours.  That and 'cause he owes me a chocolate milk that he was supposed to buy me at Blade Show last year but he skipped out on the whole show since he was moving cross country or some such nonsense.

[Chance]

yes it can get a bit cold her but I am south central Ontario so not to bad here  not sure how you deal with all that heat where you are and then by a forge no thanks . I will have to try the clamp temper trick got a big knife that keeps bending back to the spring shape.