brianrileyog Posted May 4, 2016 Share Posted May 4, 2016 Sorry to jump on your convo but so we have to move it for you Can anyone help I have repro filed the end of my first hand made knife now I have lost the temper on my tip. Stick in wood last 5 - 6mm of tip/blade will slightly bend how can I re temper without burning handle off and starting again. As I made own micarta don't want to waste it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted May 4, 2016 Share Posted May 4, 2016 How is the handled fastened on? If its riveted you will need to drill out the rivets; if it's epoxied you can heat the blade with a propane torch or even a gas stove burner till the epoxy fails. However to reharden the blade will require heating it to critical temperature in a forge; quenching in the proper for that alloy quenchant and drawing temper on the whole piece again. You then should be able to re apply the grip material. How did it lose it's temper *after* hilting? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Latticino Posted May 4, 2016 Share Posted May 4, 2016 Needless to say you don't want to temper the blade any further, you need to heat treat it (including normalizing, quenching and tempering). I can't imagine any way that you can selectively heat treat just the end of the blade without affecting some of the rest of it (even if you are able to heat only one section up to 1450 and quench it without burning the handle, you are still going to get a transition between the two). If you don't want to, or can't, remove the handle and do it properly (as Thomas recommends) you will need to re-profile again and remove the soft tip. This time I would suggest that you stick to hand tools like files and sandpaper to avoid working too fast and heating the metal. Are you sure it was properly heat treated in the first place? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzkill Posted May 4, 2016 Share Posted May 4, 2016 If you got the tip hot enough to "lose the temper" then you should have seen colors appear on the steel. If that happened then you were working too fast with the machine as latticino suggested. If you did not see any temper colors appear on the affected area then it's likely you didn't have the proper steel for hardening, a proper quench, or you tempered too hot to begin with. Will a file skate off the other portions of the blade without digging in? If a file cuts into the steel easily elsewhere on the blade then it was probably never hardened. If your starting steel can't be hardened in the first place then it doesn't matter what you do; you still won't end up with a good knife at the end of it all. The bottom line is you didn't give us enough information to accurately diagnose the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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