Redneck carp's-tongue Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 Given that I lack a specialized tempering oven, I was wondering if it is possible to temper blade steel (I'm using 1095 currently) in either a kitchen oven or a grill. I really don't have the money to buy a tempering oven, which is why I'm asking this question in the first place (yes Steve, before you chastise me rather than answer this question, I did look for a similar question and couldn't find anything). There is, however, a problem that I see with using the oven: It is in a kitchen, and my forge is outside, so I'll also ask how long does in take a quenched, untempered 1095 steel blade to crack after the quench? Perhaps if I move this post to the blade heat treating section ...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 I can't answer your specific question, but I can offer a piece of time-tested advice: If you quench in any oil other than canola, do not temper in your kitchen oven. Unless you have a solid exhaust system and a good divorce lawyer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redneck carp's-tongue Posted June 23, 2016 Author Share Posted June 23, 2016 4 minutes ago, JHCC said: I can't answer your specific question, but I can offer a piece of time-tested advice: If you quench in any oil other than canola, do not temper in your kitchen oven. Unless you have a solid exhaust system and a good divorce lawyer. The grill will probably work in that case. It would be relatively easy to get it up to the temperatures mentioned in the "Advanced Heat Treating" post, and it's outside and can be warmed up quickly, so yeah, may not need to use the oven. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 How long does it take for something I drop to hit the ground? Like your question, very indeterminate. The best answer is to move quickly from the quench to the tempering. The temperature in the oven is probably more even and exact than that of the grill; but the oil type/spousal issues are very true! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackdawg Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 You can buy "toaster ovens" for a reasonable price if your blades are normal knife blade sizes, one of those might do the job for you. (they are smaller than a normal oven, and wouldn't take anything much bigger) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redneck carp's-tongue Posted June 23, 2016 Author Share Posted June 23, 2016 I already have a toaster oven. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwistedCustoms Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 1095 shouldn't crack at any point after the quench. If you normalize during the forging and again before you harden you shouldn't have problems. I let ten-hundred series steels cool to room temp after quenching and wire brush the scale and oil completely off the blades before tempering whether I'm using an oven or drawing heat from a sacrificial piece of steel to watch the colors run and temper by eye. Toaster ovens tend to have big heat swings but you can compensate for that somewhat by going on the high end of the heat range. Most toaster ovens don't go over 450f . Start with your temper cycles at max heat for your toaster oven and then see if a file skates on the blade. If the file cuts your blade easily you can re-harden and try again at lower heat. Bottom line, without precision equipment you won't get precision, predictable results without some trial and error. You can get good, repeatable results by keeping notes, only changing one thing at a time on each run through and doing it exactly the same way once you get the desired results. I've never even thought of using a gas grill but if you have one with a thermostat try it and see what works. You could also stack fire bricks inside your gas grill to make an insulated chamber, an oven in an oven. Place a second temperature probe inside your brick pile so you know exactly what's going on in the inner chamber and see if you can find a grill setting that holds that inner chamber steady at a desired temp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arkie Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 This has probably been mentioned a bazillion times before, but warrants mentioning again...conventional home ovens usually aren't accurate on temperature. I use our electric oven and put an oven thermometer in it. Our oven is actually about 25-30 degrees hotter than the temp setting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 and it often depends on where in the oven you are at---as a good example I recently put three loaves of banana bread on the top rack of my oven and they cooked at different rates...having an oven thermometer placed where you will be tempering is a GOOD investment of a couple of bucks... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 And this, children, is why we rotate the pans halfway through baking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 No problem front to back in a single pan; I just pulled them as they were done. Gave two loaves to my daughter as a house warming gift and ate the other one myself... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arkie Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 3 hours ago, ThomasPowers said: and it often depends on where in the oven you are at---as a good example I recently put three loaves of banana bread on the top rack of my oven and they cooked at different rates...having an oven thermometer placed where you will be tempering is a GOOD investment of a couple of bucks... I got lucky there, ours is a convection oven to boot, so the circulation is better than none. Yes, I do put the thermometer where I place the work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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