So I made a few knives and spears to start learning how to smith. And my newer creations are better. But when I went to the older stuff its more weak and flexible. And will bend but not bounce back into straight shape. Any ideas? Do I have to heat it hotter? Or cool is faster or slower? Thanks for reading.

You might,( or might not) want to look into the  knife making lessons in the forum. Steve and I have put answers to this and other questions in there with lots of tips...I fo one am not likely to type it all out again,,,,

you need to learn the heat treating aspects in order to get better results

The first question is gonna be WHAT ALLOY?  Followed by how did you heat treat it?

 

Otherwise it's like asking "so I need to carry a load; is my truck big enough?" without telling us how big a load or how big a truck you have.

thanks for your replies, i figured it out threw a bunch of different techniques and stuff. good learning process, trial and error.

Care to share details? Maybe some other folks had the same issue on the same metal. :)

It was an old short sword type creation I made awhile ago, so I just heated up and folded the metal a few times, and re shaped it. It's actually in a real sword shape now. Lol, it was horrible before. But folding it really made it stronger. I also did use clay for the cooling.

what steel did you use that folding made it stronger? and what do you mean by Clay Cooling ?

Folding usually decreases the carbon content---like in the japanese swords where they often start at nearly 2% C and by repeated folding and welding take the carbon content to .5%