Let us know if you want a "basics of heat treating" set of posts from Cashen

kevin - the professor

Well-Known Member
I posted this in another place, but I don't think anyone will see it, hardly. It is buried in a thread about o1.

The issue here is that Kevin Cashen has consented to prepare us a basic or intro heat treating resource, if there is interest. So, please let the rest of the forum know if you would like to have a resource like this. See below:

Hey - Everyone - Please let the rest of us know - ARE YOU INTERESTED IN Kevin Cashen (not me) pulling together a few PRIMER type posts on the basics of heat treating?
Things like
*HOW TO HEAT TREAT SIMPLE MEDIUM, MED HIGH, AND HIGH CARBON steels
*The EFFECTS OF ALLOYING ELEMENTS
* QUENCHING

I would personally love to see this written in simple terms and in one place. For those who don't know, Kevin has spent years STUDYING AND TESTING different aspects of heat treatment. He is a very artistic and talented smith/cutler, but he has also taken a combination of workman and scientist approach to learning this stuff. So, he is in a great position to provide the rest of us with insights that were gained from reading/studying but which have also been fairly rigorously-tested in the shop and in labs (and his own sort of hybrid shop-lab thingee his wife let him build).

Most of the time, people avoid posting if the answer to the question "Yeah, sure, me too!" or "I like that." It makes a forum become cluttered. But, we are trying to get Kevin to engage in a fairly tedious undertaking for our benefit. So, please REPLY just to say "PLEASE" or whatever. If there is interest, then maybe we can get him to take the time...

thanks,

Kevin Colwell (who has only met Kevin Cashen briefly at a couple of Ashokans...)
 
For what its worth, I personal would love to see a series of posts from Kevin on HTing. I have always learned something from everything I have read from him. Most of it goes over my head, But I always come away with a little better understanding and what I have read so far has helped me and my HT process .

So Kevin If your reading this. Please consider doing this for this community of knife makers and lovers of sharp stuff!

God Bless YA!
Randy
 
I don't think that we can have too much information on it. Kevin has done a lot of work and study on the subject and I think a short presentation would benifit us all. He has been tremendously helpful to me in coming to as much of an understanding of steel metallurgy as I have.

Doug
 
yes I would like to understand more on heat treating carbon steel.
If Kevin would be willing to take the time. Thank you.
 
Come on Kevin you now you want to. wish you would come back and post its to boring without you here my friend. But if stickies are all we can get ill take it!
 
yes please...

If possible, a VERY easy to follow set of intructions on repairing over heated steel

We miss you Kevin!!!!
 
Ok, Kevin - you asked whether there was interest. We are all students of steel, so to speak. We understand that you aren't providing information to spark DEBATE or ARGUMENT, but just as a service. It will spawn questions and discussion, of course. We aren't asking you to take one side in an argument about the relative strength of one technique versus another (or one steel type, or quenchant, or heat source, etc.).:biggrin:

take care,
kc
 
Hope it's not too late to put in a yes vote. I, for one, appreciate the tidbits that seem to start the bickering. So much of the info just isn't available elsewhere. No need to agree, but I think it's easier just to say thanks for the time and willingness to pass along hard earned info.

Thanks much Kevin, Craig
 
The number of all too kind requests and encouraging words of support, reinforces my belief that Knifedogs is one of the few forums where good solid information can be shared in a friendly and constructive environment, and thus worthy of all of our support. I was invited here to moderate so that I could help out with any information that I could. My personal ethics and my devotion to furthering knowledge in my craft, causes a failure to follow through with that commitment to weigh heavily on my conscience. But along with this I am also painfully aware of the discord that my socially inept typing skills can result in. Thus I believe that this forum is deserving of any help I can give but does not need the controversy that can come with my discussing it. My challenge was to find a way to provide a solution to both issues.

Here is what I would like to offer in answer to this dilemma. I would be happy to post purely informative posts of data and information resulting from my research, testing and shop experience that your outpouring of support shows you good folks have some confidence in. I will be very receptive to any request for specific topics in order to best serve the needs of the forum. This I will submit as a regular post as I am no different than any other participant, but it will be in a thread with a pole. I will submit only this initial fact based post and then allow the forum members to discuss it as they wish while I fulfill my other obligation as a moderator only (a referee observes, they don’t play in the game), and await the result of the pole. The pole will determine if the thread, as a whole, is worthy to be linked into a single sticky index at the top of the forum that can act as a catalogue for information that you folks find most useful. In order to make this a democratic, all inclusive, effort (this is not the Kevin Cashen forum, nor do I want it to be) I would only consider threads that are of at least 2 pages and receive a majority vote for inclusion in the index sticky.

Topics that I myself will write on will be based on requests and most commonly addressed topics on the forum. I will be happy to answer individual questions arising from the topics via e-mail (kevin@cashenblades.com). I prefer not to use the private message system because it is very troublesome considering the numbers of forums I need to keep track of and log into separately. But do keep in mind that I do have a heavy workload between making blades, teaching and currently working on my book on these very topics.

What is my angle? What’s in it for me? Folks who know me well know that I have a single obsessive passion for bringing fact based, verifiable information to the craft of bladesmithing, it is my thing, my crusade. I struggled for years myself under bad information passed onto me as facts by other well-meaning smiths, and I now cannot suffer seeing others struggling with setbacks that could be avoided with good solid information. If the data I provide feels contrary to your approach feel free not to use it, but please respect others who wish to explore it themselves. You have my pledge that what I offer will not be assumption, supposition or belief, it will be the facts of what happens within steel based on as many sources of metallurgical authority I can gain access to and my verification of these facts, through personal experience and unbiased testing and analysis. I only wish to offer this information, the visitors of this forum can choose to use and discuss as they will in a manner that respectfully fosters greater knowledge for all.

Thank you for your kindness, but now let's allow me to move out of this awkard spotlight and get to the bussiness of helping Knifedogs be the place people want to go to for helpful and friendly information. I have something ready that I was working on from the request in the O-1 thread below.

Edited to add- The idea behind this entire concept is in answer to stickies on other forums that many people feel are helpful enough to refer folks to, many of which are comprised of material that I wrote. I feel it is a shame that folks should have to look elsewhere when I could provide the same here. I am not a fan of numerous stickies filling the top of a forum so I believe the single index stickie is much tidier.
 
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