Forge and heat treat success

[markb]

I bought some 1084 1/4" 11/2"x12" cut it into quarters and forged a blade draw filed to shape and quenched in motor oil (115 degrees)then heated in the forges dragon breath at a light straw. The first time went to blue so had to anneal and start over.
I went to quench after draw filing, probably should have finished to 120?
I have never tried to heat treat before because my forgings were so poor, so got excited.
Any and all comments welcome..I can take it LOL

The last pic shows a little warp at the tang that i got in the temper.

[Steve Sells]

good start. Your distal taper looks good, shape has smooth transitions. but lets see the polish. I wanna see the cutting power, and shine then I will comment more

[markb]

Thats my job tommorrow

[markb]

Whats a good test for cutting?

[Steve Sells]

card board, natural rope are both good for testing edge holding ability.

I use a round rod to test edge flex/return. as well as Rockwell field testing files.

[markb]

Could you explain or link to round rod procedure?

Thanks for all your help.
Mark

[markb]

Well maybe not as successful as I'd hoped but, the forging went well, not alot of scale, the tang drew out Ok, shape was usable, so those are big steps for me.
I didn't file to a thin enough edge( nichel instead of a dime) so after tempering I had to go to the drinder and ended up with axe like blade profile, instead of a flat grind.

The temper is good except from the point back about half inch is soft..
I learned a lot.

[Steve Sells]

ok, I declare that a good knife, its official, your path to the dark side has begun ....:cool:

[John Martin]

Excellent job for a first time, much better than mine :)

[markb]

It's been a long road to the beginning but they say getting there is half the fun.

I'm getting closer to something worthy of a handle and that will open up a whole new adventure.

m brothers, I have a pile of practice knives, but all had scale pits or grind flaws that I didn't feel were worthy of heat treat, some were RR spike, or unknown metal, then I decided to eliminate one variable by picking one steel 1084 and sticking with it. This is the first one of many to follow and the new steel was a big improvement.

[markb]

I went out and put in a vice and broke it, no bending here snapped like glass.
Grain pics, a little blurry, camera won't focus on close up any more.

[Steve Sells]

Your blade broke because it was too hard to handle the bending. For a small knife this is not always a problem, but tempering in an oven for an hour or more (use the kitchen, you may have to wait for when wife is away) insures penetration of the tempering temperatures. A pass through the flame does not always get there. Even when oven tempering many time I still use a torch to draw the spine back more. But as you have just seen, hand torching does not always penetrate.

It is good that your were willing to do destructive testing. Many do not, and never find out until its too late, that they are not getting what they thought out of their blades and/or their heat treating.

Looks like you did well, seriously. Your only failure is now known, and you know how to improve on that the next time.

[markb]

Thanks Steve,, still learning so more ?s

The grain in the blade section is very course,like 80 or 50 grit paper.
At the recaso? (BLADE TANG JUNCTION) THE GRAIN IS FINER, LIKE 120 GRIT AND i BROKE IT COUPLE TIMES FURTHER UP THE TANG AND IT GOT PROGRESSIVLY FINER.

Sorry cap lock by mistake.

I don't know what causes this. I can only guess. Forging temp? I know I went too hot before quench.

[Graham Fredeen]

It does look like your grain structure was quite large. Grain growth occurs some durring the forging process where you are continually heating the blade and working it at those temperatures for extended periods of time (reheating over and over, etc). This gives the grain an opportunity to grow. I have also found that quenching too hot can cause larger than desired grain. Heating the steel hotter than necessary for the quench will give unnecessary grain growth. This is probably your main cause if you think you went too hot (and would explain why the grain at the tang is more refined since it was quenched at a slightly cooler temp). Best thing to help prevent this is to be really careful with your quenching temperatures. 1500 deg F (approx critical temp range for most steels) is only about a cherry red. In sunlight you wont be able to see this too well. Keep a magnet handy and periodically check for non-magnetic temp until you can figure out what the color of the steel at that temp looks like in your particular shop lighting. Also, be sure to normalize the blade before you do your hardening quench. Normalization is a crucial part of the HT process that is often overlooked at first. To normailize heat the blade up to critical temp (dont go too far above it), make sure the blade is heated evenly over its entire length. You can burry a pipe in your coal/in your gasser and let the pipe heat up, then stick the blade into the pipe, the non direct heat from the pipe will help heat the blade at one consistant temp and will prevent hot and cold spots. Then once the blade is up to temp, remove it, hang it from the tang and let air cool. I usually do a step down normailization in 3 normalization cycles, each one a progressivly lower heat. These normalizations will give you consistant grain structure through out the steel (helping to prevent hard and soft spots) and will help to refine your grain structure.

Edited January 19, 2009 by TarAlderion