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First try at a damascus blade


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hey guys so i got a 1080 and 15n20 blade i made and its time to heat treat...first how should i heat treat same as 1080 alone? also does the temper have to be done right away after hardening ....say i heat quench in canola oil tonight can i wait until tomorow to temper???THANKS

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Normalize 3 times then harden,  temper immediately after hardening.

Not sure what the exact heat treat specs would be,  personally I go just above non-magnetic, hold it a bit and then quench in oil.  May not be getting the maximum performance from the steel, but it makes a decent blade.  For your tempering temperature, you will need to experiment a bit to find the best balance of hardness and toughness.

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how about the sticky posted at the top of this page? One would assume if you wanted to know about heat treating and there is a post pinned to the top of the page on that subject, one would have taken the time to read it. I sure aint going to retype it every time a person wants to know...

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thanks w pearson...........steve i dont see ANY sticky pins by you on the top of this forum page the only 2 that are there are "blacksmithng on history channel by frosty" and "new knife maker by rich hale"   not saying its not on some other page but if you click knife making from the main page there is nothing by you or with a heat treating title ...now if wpearson is right with his link  (havent click it yet but i would tend to think its right ) your post is not at the top of this page it is in another section of the forum wich honestly i didnt even bother looking at that section as another forum i was on a while ago had a section similar to that and it was all about people looking for knife making classes they can go to locally wich i already know there ar none near me so again.... quoting you "how about the sticky posted at the top of THIS page?".......not on this page  

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ok steve your right ill admit when i am wrong i have been reading entirely to much i thought i posted this in bladesmiting/knife making .....sory didnt want to upset you

can some one ansswer me one question...with a 1080/15n20 is it nesssacary to normalize 3 times before hardening i ask because i keep hearing that it will cause alot of scale and crap on the blade wich i dont want to deal with unless i have to as the blade is already shaped and a general primary bevel  put on i dont want to have to sand or grind so heavy it messes that up

 

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no i havent done any HT with this blade yet,, i keep hearing different opinions some say that normalizing is needed some say its not and then i hear that it causes ALOT of crap on the blade. i mean i know how to controll the atmosphere (as i did creating this blade) you think that will be enough. maybe brushing it when it comes out. i dont mind a lil i am going to have to deal with that no matter what but i just dont want it so bad i end up screwing up the shape tring to get it back off....also should i clean between each step...normalizing ,hardening, temper....this is the first time HTing in a propane forge

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  • 4 months later...

Cruising around and coming on this late as usual, but have some suggestions:

Using a propane forge to ht, buy a thermocouple and a pid temp reader to manually control the temp. A needle valve for your gas line will refine the

process.

Prior to the quench, I like to thermocycle 2-3 times to refine the grain, then I normalize for stress relief.

This seems to minimize warping.

Soak time is important. I like to heat to 1500 and soak 5 min prior to quenching, especially with 1095/L6 combos. 1095 is a hypereuctectoid  steel and is not very forgiving. By doing this, I consistently get 64 hrc, then temper back.

There are no shortcuts for consistency. I tried.

John

Gearhart Ironwerks

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  • 5 years later...

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