Recent content by jdn181

Typically when I do 1095 (which is close to W2) for thicknesses of 1/8" to 1/4" I'll dip the 1425 to 1450degF blade into 100degF pre-heated brine for 3 secs, pull for 4 or 5sec, then back into the brine until touch-safe (140 or less). Once cool I'll run a file over it to check that it skates off...

BTW - That tutorial by Stephen Fowler is EXCELLENT! (One linked in origional post). His tutorial was how I learned to apply the clay globs to direct the hamon. Examine closely the sizes of the globs he applies, how they're placed, and the spacing. Here's a couple more thoughts on finishing...

I've started my knife-making last year using soley 1095 (Aldo's), brine quench, and clayed blades (furnace cement in the beginning since I had a metric ton left over from building my forge, but I changed to satanite in Jan 2011). Here are some pointers I either learned eaither thru people...

Cheap heaters (like toaster ovens) use a simple thermostat control mechanism because anything you toast (like bread) won't care if it sees an accuracy of +/-25 degrees. There are a couple of means of gleaning a higher accuracy of control. First being to use a large thermal mass to act like a...