Steve Sells Posted December 22, 2016 Share Posted December 22, 2016 so following what everyone else does isnt good enough why? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted December 22, 2016 Share Posted December 22, 2016 28 minutes ago, Steve Sells said: so following what everyone else does isnt good enough why? Sorry, was that directed at me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted December 22, 2016 Share Posted December 22, 2016 2 hours ago, JHCC said: Sorry, was that directed at me? the water/soap comment, he said he has spare W2 but hasn't done a test? why risk the blade, follow manufacture spec's for W2, why the guessing games? test a coupon and find out safely Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basher Posted January 4, 2017 Share Posted January 4, 2017 W2 can have a varying manganese content, some of it is very shallow hardening , some more like 1095 (still pretty shallow hardening). This has worked a few times on UK W2 and on Don Hansens lower manganese W2 from the USA. 3 decending normalisations at 830C,800C and then 750C (more of a sub critical anneal). Then harden from 770C with a 10 min soak. into water around 40C for a count of 3 seconds and then strait into pre heated OIL at 80C untill blade has cooled to oil temp . temper imediatly. There is still a risk of the blade cracking with an interupted quench but I have god good results with water then oil. Some people seem to do OK into straight water either as an interupted water quench , into and out of then into the water again or just with a hard core full unterupted water quench. If you harden into water in any way then you risk the dreaded cracks..but can get some much more interesting Hamon... Some W2 wil get a nice Hamon into a faster quenching oil, but the edge needs to be a lot thinner to get this material to harden to any depth. I have got some good results quenching from 770Cwith my UK fast quenching oil (much slower than parks50) at 120C (Hot oil is very very dangerous and this temp may not be safe with some quenching oils). OIl givs a very slight reverse Sori as well (at least the way I do it.). I would definatly make a small tanto sized blade as a test blade before doing your bigger blades. photograph your clay'd blade before you quench so you can compare Hamon and clay lines as well as any sori changes Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basher Posted January 5, 2017 Share Posted January 5, 2017 well looking around I see that this is exactly what you did......How did it go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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