I want to make a sword. I have made some knives and a small but rough sword and now want a new challenge. I have a nice piece of 1/4 O-1 and I just want to know what is the best and easiest way to heat treat it (I am going to make a 35 inch longsword with no fuller and any other general sword making tips would be awesome thank you.)

Have you read the pinned thread at the top of this section? Have you done a site search for threads on heat-treating O1? What questions do you have that those threads didn’t answer?

3 hours ago, JHCC said:

Have you read the pinned thread at the top of this section? Have you done a site search for threads on heat-treating O1? What questions do you have that those threads didn’t answer?

I have read a lot on the internet and I know all the basic stuff but I was just wondering if there was anyone out there that knows a lot about it and has some special tricks or something specialized to swords.

Okay, let’s try this again. Did you read THIS POST:

Did you do a search of IFI for threads on heat-treating O1?

https://www.google.com/search?q=iforgeiron.com+heat+treat+O-1&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

What SPECIFIC questions do you have about heat-treating O-1? Have you ever worked with it before? Have you made blades before? Have you made a sword before? What kind of equipment do you have? Etc, etc, etc. 

Please understand that people here WANT to help you, but you have to do your part (that is, by giving good background, asking specific questions, and not expecting to be spoonfed information that’s already been discussed) first. 

He can't have read too much about it,. he didn't notice we have an entire section devoted to blades,  He said he  knows all the basic stuff, but He doesn't seem to know that O1 is too  stiff an alloy for that at 90 points carbon, forget making  a sword from it, one of the other posts explains why. I wont repeat that here either..

 but I can relocate this to the correct place,. and perhaps he will actually read here and learn something. maybe he will notice the  pinned thread about making swords, it also explains why I am being red-short about this, says he read but proved he didnt

The difference from a sword and a sharpened piece of metal involves things like Distal Taper, Blade Harmonics and WEIGHT! 

For over 1000 years the weight of a good battle sword was about 2.2 to 2.5 pounds. (Note this holds true for European as well as Japanese swords....)

Hrisoulas's books cover some details on swordmaking,