My semi-real time heat treating thread

Kevin wow alot of typing and alot of reading . I read most but not all the poste on this thread so far. I got to the part about L6 and figured I need to ask . I aquired 3 saw blades made from L6 big 36 /40 inch diameter comercial blades. everyone told me L6 and my brother in law asked they said L6 so to make sure I could send off a piece to make sure and it would be worth knowing for sure. If In fact this is L6 will this make nice straight razors. The saw blades are near a 1/4 thick , will it be ok . Or should I just buy some 1084 1/4 thick . kellyw
 
Kevin,
Being the frugal miser that I am, OK, poor guy with no cash to speak of, I end up buying Chinese (crap) quite often, surprisingly it does do fairly well, although it irks me to no end that the money I spent could have employed a hard working American. I'm not familiar with a China made Rockwell tester, mind sharing the particulars about where to find one, the cost and the the quality test blocks you use as well? After reading the "Quench Wars", I'm getting a tester, just to be on the safe side, and KNOW-not ASSUME what the hardness is of my steel.


While I applaud anybody’s efforts in pursuing truly accurate and effective means of testing, the Rockwell tester needs to be viewed in the same way as any test in a field where so many have an undying and oversimplified belief in single tell-all tests. There are no single tell-all tests, and the closer you get to general tell all type tests the less accurate and reliable they become. The most accurate tests measure one single aspect very precisely, but cannot provide an overall big picture and only through the combining of many little pictures can you get an accurate view of the whole.

First off, it cannot be repeated enough in order to help folks out with a widespread confusion about hardness testing, that there are different forms of what we call “hardness”; here I will focus on the two we most commonly encounter. The most common that knifemakers look for is “scratch, wear or abrasion hardness”, this is what we check with files (think of the very old Mohs Scale measuring one mineral scratching another). For this discussion I usually use the analogy of imagining a ball of Playdoh loaded with glass shards. If you pass a file over the surface of your doh ball it will skate off the glass and register things as VERY hard.

The next hardness we will consider is “penetrative hardness”, it more accurately describes the materials strength in not being pushed aside as an object is forced into it. For this visualize our same Playdoh ball, but take the handle off the file and shove the tang straight down into it. Of course the tang will simply push the glass aside and sink into the ball as if it were nothing but Playdoh.

Now we have two tests of “hardness” but one is saying the material is as hard as glass while the other is saying it is as soft as Playdoh?:confused: Which one is correct? Well, they both are but only as long as we are well aware of what it is we are measuring, and combining both tests will give us a more complete picture all around.

Bladesmiths have come to rely on a few tests believed to be “tell all” with no real concept of what it is that those tests can measure, leading to way too much confusion. And in the meantime they have turned their backs on tests that can very accurately measure specific things because those tests did not tell them what they wanted to hear. One of the greatest examples of this is the almost hackneyed “brass rod” test which relies on flexing the edge. Flexing anything made of steel is almost solely a function of the cross section and the only time the heat treatment (hardness or softness) comes into play is when the yield point is exceeded, i.e.- “snap” or bend. Since this “test” can only measure the mode of failure it really tells us next to nothing about scratch or penetrative hardness yet is believed by many to be a reasonable replacement for Rockwell, one of the most accurate measurements of a true hardness.

I only bring all of this up as a reminder that to rely on one test without realizing its limitations is no better than no test at all, and worse if it leads you in the wrong direction.

Files are a good quick way to check scratch hardness as long as you know everything else is in order, but a file cannot detect fine pearlite (the soft stuff made when the quench didn’t quite do its job) any more than it could detect Playdoh between piece of glass, I have very detailed proof of this for any doubters. On the other hand the powerful Rockwell test can also only tell you about one specific thing- the overall strength of the material as measured by penetrative hardness, it will indeed very quickly tell you if you have any fine pearlite as it pushes the hardened bits aside. But the Rockwell test can tell you nothing about the grain size, carbide size, and many other important features inside the steel, in fact in the case of grain growth the Rockwell readings will be even higher!

So, look into a Rockwell tester if you want more precise readings of penetrative hardness (and trust me you do want that), but also realize that that is all it will tell you about and is best used in combination with other tests for the total picture.

The unit I use is a common hardness tester that you can get right now at Production tool Supply for $999.95 (# NR50-900330), although I think I may have gotten mine from Enco. It is not an expensive brand name model but using a tester is like sighting in a rifle, if it will give you a nice tight grouping all you need to do is adjust your windage and elevation, if you know what I mean. The sighting in of these units is all in the test blocks, so even if you have a cheaper unit, if it reads consistently and is adjustable the test blocks is where it is as and the tester can only read as true as the blocks, so one can get better results with a cheap tester but excellent test blocks than a guy with a top of the line tester but cheap test blocks.

Good test blocks will start at around $75 and should be NIST certified to insure accuracy. Look for ones rated in the range you plan to work in the most, so 57-63 HRC would be good.

Always remember that these testers are designed to be very accurate and, like any precision instrument with that level of accuracy, can be easily affected if you are not careful with their use. I keep mine in a heated lab area in my shop because the hydraulics are effected by cold and will skew the readings, also continuous heating and cooling will create internal condensation and corrosion which is bad for any instrument. Use an old piece of clean steel to take several “disposable” readings off from at the start of a testing day to compress all the parts and squeeze the oils on the elevator, after this warm up the tester should be in working order. I use my expensive test blocks to calibrate the tester every so often but make up my own everyday test blocks to double check things (I am anal retentive to the point of neurosis in their creation however).

Test pieces need to be over 200X finish for truly accurate reading (I like 400X). Readings not taken on a flat level surface will not be trustworthy as the micro-crater created by the penetrator must be symmetrical on all sides, one side giving way will result in a false reading. The anvil and the test piece MUST be clean. If I ever hear that almost inaudible “crunch” sound of dust being squeezed under the major or minor loads I discard the reading and do it again after cleaning things off thoroughly.

One single reading is not worth much. I prefer at least 5 readings over an area with the resulting number being an average of these, any readings more than 1.5 HRC deviation from the rest should be redone to confirm.

As you can see I am really a geek and take all of my testing very seriously and insist on verifying all data, especially my own.

I will post answers to your other questions, but right now I am being summoned away from the computer with subtle reminders that it is Mothers day;) .
 
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Having already provided fire support for my children's spectactularly enthusiastic Mother's Day activities, I can relax and read through this thread again.

Kevin, your formal testing seems to entail Rockwell hardness, etched micrographs, and impact testing. Does that cover it, and do you ever send samples out for chemical analysis, SEM or x-ray testing, microhardness etc...?
 
Micro-hardness can come in handy, and through connections I have had that test available but not close by until recently, but now I have easier access should I require it. Due to my insistence on using steel with chemistry sheets provided I have not had much call for that, the chemistry is the chemistry and unless you really screw up you don't change it much in making a knife. However, now that I am making a bit more of my own steel I am feeling the need for chemistry checks a bit more, so I often look around for that equipment and daydream about having the funds. X-ray diffraction can be handy in looking for retained austenite, but if you do things right it is not enough of and issue to lose sleep over, and there are other ways of troubleshooting it if you know what to look for.

My other tests consist of various edge tests and microscopic examination of the same. I am currently planning a micro-impact test designed specifically for edges. For the most part I also use the heck out of test blades in ways that at least resemble what you would do with a knife. One the most puzzling things I have always noticed about knifemakers are the number of tests they use to show the quality of their knives that have absolutely nothing to do with what knives are meant to do.:confused:

Edited to add- I would like to be clear about my sincere belief that most of these things are NOT necessary to make a good knife, microscopes and other analysis equipment are handy if you want to get deep inside the steel but are ridiculous overkill just to make knives. Simply following sound heat treating principles and good shop practice can insure that I make quality knives, but the real reason I built a special room to fill with the metallurgical gadgets was to insure the quality of the information I provided to counter the loads of entrenched hooey in the knifemaking community. I believe people should have more than the assumptions and "say so" of well known makers or hype designed to sell magazines when being offered information about what we are doing. My "lab" work is for my quirky and expensive metallurgical nerd hobby, much more than for making knives.
 
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Kevin, any update on the heat treat book you were working?
 
I happily confess to using the brass-rod test on my knives, both ones I've made and ones I've bought. I fully agree that the results very often have more to do with edge geometry, than they do with the steel itself, although material properties and subsequent treatment certainly are a factor.

The results of such a test are extremely unlikely to fully describe the properties of the steel, or the way it was heat-treated. But they may very well give some insight to the knife's actual performance.

I'm aware that brass-rod test results don't mean doodly-squat as regards the Rockwell-C hardness of the blade, or what the true chemistry of the steel is, or whether the blade will tolerate being bashed through a tree. Nor do rope-cutting tests, banging the spine against an anvil, or burying it in wet soil to see how quickly it corrodes.

Having said all that, I humbly submit that for most "user" knives (camp, combat or kitchen, envelope-opening or crate-opening, slicing steak or 'deanimating' bad guys :rolleyes:) the brass-rod test is a fairly decent indicator of whether or not a given knife's edge will roll over or chip out during its intended use.

I'm NOT saying the brass-rod test, or cutting rope, or slicing meat for that matter, is the only, or best, way to determine a blade's overall quality! I'm very glad that bladesmiths like Mr. Cashen and their counterparts in industry have put so much time and effort into testing steels, HT procedures, etc. Their research is incredibly valuable to anyone who enjoys good cutlery of any sort.

But frankly, I feel the only way to find out if a given blade will withstand the work it's designed for, is to use it that way and see what happens.

That's just my experience, based on use and intentional abuse of several knives made of several different steels. On a certain level, I don't give a hoot what the Rc number is, if my knife stays sharp and doesn't break while I'm using it. Does this seem reasonable?

Thank you Kevin, and KnifeDogs.com, for letting me ramble :)
 
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…BTW- I want to thank you for the time and effort you put into sharing your knowledge, I know it's not something you have to do, the information you provide has been priceless. Especially when I can comprehend what your saying! …

Kevin, I know this is an understatement, but, a sincere "thanks for posting".
Not trying to be a suck-up, but, I've learned a great amount from you.
- thanks again.

I think of it as research, so in that way it's productive! :)

Seriously, this has been really interesting to me, even though I don't do my own HT. Once again, you've added a lot to my very-slowly-evolving understanding of the procedures, and I thank you for that. Coffee or beer is on me if you ever happen to be in my lil town ;)

Gentlemen, let me just say that you are most certainly welcome. The opportunities I have been given to hands on teach this craft is the second most rewarding thing I have experienced after actually making blades. Other than idle conversation most folks have an agenda when expending time and effort in venues like this. For many the motive of advertising is more obvious than others, and I am saying nothing negative about that, this can be a great way to sell yourself or your products as long as you are honest about it. But for me it is about the information and with that I too have an agenda, and if it has not been plain to see allow me to state it definitively- my agenda is to provide enough sound information about how steel really works that one day all the hype and myths that have been stifling the growth of our craft for too long will fade away. I have said enough times before to have been quoted that “I hand out information like free guns to an oppressed population”, and for much the same reason.

I don’t believe I could ever tire of typing detailed two page posts to help with the questions of people sincerely looking to improve their knifemaking success, but my single greatest regret are the potential friends I have lost in my efforts to bring solid information to our craft. The way my mind works, it cannot fathom why verifiable facts could put you at odds with other people, but much to my chagrin many react to such input much the same as an established aristocracy would react to free guns in the hands of the peasants. In all sincerity, not a day goes by that I do not agonize over the hard feelings created by my efforts to dispel bad information, but if the price of those friendships is for me to compromise my principles by ignoring facts in order pander to myths and marketing, then the price of that solace it too high for me to pay.

So if my goals and ethics force me to accept the hostility of some of my peers, let me express how the kind words of support and gratitude from gentlemen such as yourselves truly give me the strength to hit “enter” some days after typing a post that I know will only increase the level of grief from people I will always wished could have been friends.

My sincerest thanks back at you gentlemen.

Now if you can only give me some relief from the grief I get from my wife about how all this free information should be saved for my book.;)
 
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But frankly, I feel the only way to find out if a given blade will withstand the work it's designed for, is to use it that way and see what happens...


This is exactly my position as well, all the fancy lab test I do are for studying the materials and the processes but the only thing that will tell you how good a knife is is to use it as a knife. This is my issue with so many "tests" that will look impressive on a full page ad or draw a crowd at a major show, but have nothing to do with using a knife. Just use the knife. Use it hard, but in just the way it was meant for. I personally like clearing fence rows with large blades, half a day of hacking and chopping who knows what, will tell you how the blade hold up, how the handle treats your hand, how effective every type of strike can be. There is no more brutal environment for a knife than a kitchen! Short of hacking rocks nothing in the outdoors will challenge a knife edge like heavy food preparation, this may sound silly but give it a try and you will realize that if a knife can handle a week in a real busy kitchen, it it more than a match for anything Rambo could throw at it. Cutting rope is fun, I guess, but if you know somebody who processes deer during season in a state like MI;) drop off some knives for them to try and listen to what they tell you when you pick them back up.

Any of these things would be worth ten times more than Rockwell testers, brass rods or spectrographs in determining a good knife.

Edited to add: I just thought of a recent example of how much more complicated edge strengths can be than the brass rod test would indicate. Just 4 nights ago I tested an edge to destruction that handled flexing over a rod with no problem, it was hard to even get it to flex but no chipping or rolling could be induced in gradual flexing. I then commenced to hacking a 3/4" brass rod at various angles of attack to the edge with increasing force until I got any failure I could. At the point of taking 1/4 deep bites from the metal I finally got both deformation and chipping in the same edge impacted with intentionally off kilter blows. I have to wonder which mode of failure the rod flex would have shown if able to be pushed to the yield point? In the end it won't haunt me too much because I find the impact testing more closely resembles the forces that large bowie would have seen. With both brittle and ductile failure occuring in the same edge one can get how looking at many aspects would be the only way to understand the entire picture.
 
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Kevin, any update on the heat treat book you were working?

Speaking of that book that so pits my wife against me:D Life continues to get in the way. I was ordered by my better half to stop working this winter and sit down to finish that dang book! Then I got called to teach more this winter than in any previous year- teaching pays bills, writing and rewriting chapters all day does not:(. I will continue to pursue its completion since it remains the biggest unanswered challenge of my entire career. There are days when that book makes me feel like the guy who has been engaged to the girl of his dreams for ten years while everybody around him wonders what his problem is:eek:.
 
When you have time, could you post the sequence for Hting the basic steels like 1095, 1084, etc. I know those 2 are similar but all the info out there has different ways of doing it, one says to soak 1095, while others says not to, I guess what I'm saying is dumb it down for folks like me, a step by step procedure would be awesome...

I will try to give you as much information as I can but I will avoid providing a “recipe”. There is a profound irony in the number of homespun bladesmiths that will advise that you do things just like they read in a magazine or were told by their grandpappy because they know it works without having to know why, but then accuse those who follow spec sheets or the “Heat Treaters Guide” of merely being “recipe readers” . A person only concerned with making Grandmas biscuits exactly like she did works with recipes, a top chef is capable of making anything without recipes because he is armed with a knowledge of what each ingredient and cooking process will do. I prefer to give people tools in the form information to write their own recipes.

1084 and 1095 are the two ideal steels to start such a basic discussion with. They are both of the simplest carbon steel 10XX series, representing the simplest of all (eutectoid- at .84%) and the extra considerations involved with the addition of extra carbon in 1095. When considering Crucibles Cru Forge V, more than once I have thought the concept of developing a steel just for bladesmiths was redundant when you consider that we have had 1084 for all these years. A simple steel with no extra carbon or alloying to worry about in forging or heat treating with minimal equipment, and an extra pinch of Mn to help quench things more effectively, and yet still shallow hardening enough to facilitate the differential hardening so many smiths have such a penchant for. While capable of versatility in the hands of veteran knifemakers 1084 really is the perfect bladesmithing steel for beginners.

Heat 1084 anywhere in a range from 1475F to 1500F with no real soak time and quench it in any reasonably quick oil and you should be able to produce a knife that will meet your performance expectations. To anneal it all you have to do is get it hot and slow cool it and cut, file or sand to your hearts content. It really doesn’t get much simple that this. This is because of an almost magical equilibrium point for carbon in iron, right around .8%, known as the eutectoid. At room temperature you will make all the same structure throughout with no leftover iron to fill and no left over carbon to get into mischief in your blade. On heating .8% will go into total solution at the lowest possible temperature once again with no left over iron to fill and not extra carbon to deal with. Because of this you are looking good at 1475F and there is no need to sweat if you get nearer to 1500F.

All steels will benefit to some sort of equalizing soak time at temperature so if you can hold at 1475F for a while, great! If you really are more comfortable limiting you time at heat go a little higher and quench immediately.

I am not sure if you are aware of my steel spec. pages on my web site but here is a link with much of the information you may be looking for : http://www.cashenblades.com/info/steel/1084.html

1095 is a different story. 1095 is just one steel that has gotten an undeserved bad rap by true recipe followers using the wrong treatments on it. There are no bad steels only wrong applications and heat treatments. If you fail to recognize that 1095 is NOT 1084 and heat treat it like it is, you will be disappointed.

1095 will have around .15% carbon above that happy eutectoid level to deal with. If this extra carbon is not forced by you to do something useful for your knife, it will find things to do on its own which you will not like. Heating too high will unleash this carbon to run rampant, cooling too slow from total solution will allow this extra carbon to settle into places that will give you grief. So the rules to remember are to keep the soak heat closer to 1475F and forget about the old heat to critical and slow cool methods of annealing that may work fine for 1084. Air cooling is as slow as you want to go, and the best way to soften this stuff while keeping things pretty for the final blade is to cool quick and then reheat to dull red to soften. To fully describe this would entail an entire other thread on spheroidal and subcritical annealing methods but suffice to say that 1095 needs to be treated differently than 1084.
 
I will try to give you as much information as I can but I will avoid providing a “recipe”. There is a profound irony in the number of homespun bladesmiths that will advise that you do things just like they read in a magazine or were told by their grandpappy because they know it works without having to know why, but then accuse those who follow spec sheets or the “Heat Treaters Guide” of merely being “recipe readers” . A person only concerned with making Grandmas biscuits exactly like she did works with recipes, a top chef is capable of making anything without recipes because he is armed with a knowledge of what each ingredient and cooking process will do. I prefer to give people tools in the form information to write their own recipes.

1084 and 1095 are the two ideal steels to start such a basic discussion with. They are both of the simplest carbon steel 10XX series, representing the simplest of all (eutectoid- at .84%) and the extra considerations involved with the addition of extra carbon in 1095. When considering Crucibles Cru Forge V, more than once I have thought the concept of developing a steel just for bladesmiths was redundant when you consider that we have had 1084 for all these years. A simple steel with no extra carbon or alloying to worry about in forging or heat treating with minimal equipment, and an extra pinch of Mn to help quench things more effectively, and yet still shallow hardening enough to facilitate the differential hardening so many smiths have such a penchant for. While capable of versatility in the hands of veteran knifemakers 1084 really is the perfect bladesmithing steel for beginners.

Heat 1084 anywhere in a range from 1475F to 1500F with no real soak time and quench it in any reasonably quick oil and you should be able to produce a knife that will meet your performance expectations. To anneal it all you have to do is get it hot and slow cool it and cut, file or sand to your hearts content. It really doesn’t get much simple that this. This is because of an almost magical equilibrium point for carbon in iron, right around .8%, known as the eutectoid. At room temperature you will make all the same structure throughout with no leftover iron to fill and no left over carbon to get into mischief in your blade. On heating .8% will go into total solution at the lowest possible temperature once again with no left over iron to fill and not extra carbon to deal with. Because of this you are looking good at 1475F and there is no need to sweat if you get nearer to 1500F.

All steels will benefit to some sort of equalizing soak time at temperature so if you can hold at 1475F for a while, great! If you really are more comfortable limiting you time at heat go a little higher and quench immediately.

I am not sure if you are aware of my steel spec. pages on my web site but here is a link with much of the information you may be looking for : http://www.cashenblades.com/info/steel/1084.html

1095 is a different story. 1095 is just one steel that has gotten an undeserved bad rap by true recipe followers using the wrong treatments on it. There are no bad steels only wrong applications and heat treatments. If you fail to recognize that 1095 is NOT 1084 and heat treat it like it is, you will be disappointed.

1095 will have around .15% carbon above that happy eutectoid level to deal with. If this extra carbon is not forced by you to do something useful for your knife, it will find things to do on its own which you will not like. Heating too high will unleash this carbon to run rampant, cooling too slow from total solution will allow this extra carbon to settle into places that will give you grief. So the rules to remember are to keep the soak heat closer to 1475F and forget about the old heat to critical and slow cool methods of annealing that may work fine for 1084. Air cooling is as slow as you want to go, and the best way to soften this stuff while keeping things pretty for the final blade is to cool quick and then reheat to dull red to soften. To fully describe this would entail an entire other thread on spheroidal and subcritical annealing methods but suffice to say that 1095 needs to be treated differently than 1084.



THANKS Kevin!!! That info is perfect! One question, if any amount of soak time will benefit all steels, why not do it? Is the benefit so slight you won't be able to tell the difference? Thanks for the help, and NOW I've got your web site saved in my favorites. Thanks so much, Rex
 
THANKS Kevin!!! That info is perfect! One question, if any amount of soak time will benefit all steels, why not do it? Is the benefit so slight you won't be able to tell the difference? Thanks for the help, and NOW I've got your web site saved in my favorites. Thanks so much, Rex

The benefit to many steels is enormous, the only reason I touch in the subject of not doing it is the number of people who may not be able to do it. It is not all that easy even for me to hold a blade at exact temp for several minutes in a forge. It is a really unpopular message to deliver to bladesmiths, the guys that have been told they can produce the best blades ever, that they don't really have the tools to maximize the potential of the majority of steels today, but it is a fact that the majority of steels today were developed long after the simple forge was obsolete for working steel. Can you see another reason why the simplicity of 1084 is very good for bladesmiths? But if one has a controlled oven, there is no reason not to go for at least a 5 minute soak on almost any steel.

One can watch the HRC values climb with every minute of soak time for most alloy steels, and then one can really see the difference in tempering temperatures required after a proper soak. Steel that has has been heated quickly in a forge with no soak my only need a bit more than 350F to temper to working hardness, but the same steel with a proper soak will invariably need in excess of 400F to go from the 62HRC range to a 59-60HRC. For hunters this is great I can just heat quenched 1084 to 400F and call it good, but for large chopping blades, properly soaked 1084 can take me all night to walk in a proper temper as high as 500F to get below 58-59 HRC.huh1
 
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Any insights on what would happen if 1095 were hardened from 1575-1600 instead of 1475?
 
Any insights on what would happen if 1095 were hardened from 1575-1600 instead of 1475?

Wow! Successfully revived after 6 years buried:biggrin:! I lost a friend to a car accident when I was 18, any chance you guys could get him in on this discussion? I miss talking to him:3:.

me2, the answer to your question seems so obvious that I almost have to believe that this is a loaded question, or at least there is more to it than first meets the eye. :1:
 
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Kevin,

I've learned so much from this site and you particularly it's mind boggling. I've been slowly reading all the older posts seeking knowledge so I just had to comment how much I liked this thread. It's like a gold mine here. I've ordered your DVD's, read everything on your site and many others. Did you ever write the book? I couldn't find one!

I'm really just starting my heat treat journey. And while my first heat treats were 'successful' in that they are least somewhat hard and seem to hold an edge I just don't have any data that I trust. Bought the hardness testing files but I apparently don't know how to use them properly. The whole file skating concept is lost on me. Is that supposed to be like roller skates or ice skates? I'm a fairly big guy, I think I just push too hard. I've ordered a stand type Rockwell tester, should be here by the weekend. Looking forward to at least some type of hard data.

Anyway thank you to you and all who take the time to share their knowledge!
 
Wow! Successfully revived after 6 years buried:biggrin:! I lost a friend to a car accident when I was 18, any chance you guys could get him in on this discussion? I miss talking to him:3:.

me2, the answer to your question seems so obvious that I almost have to believe that this is a loaded question, or at least there is more to it than first meets the eye. :1:

I think I know there problems, but there may be more that I don't know about. A fellow I talked to briefly said he quenches from 1600 ish with his 1095. I figure lots of RA, some grain growth, lower carbide volume, less wear resistance, lots of plate martensite and associated loss of toughness. I didn't buy a knife from that guy, though some looked nice enough for his prices. I can't say I'd buy a knife from anyone who heat treated that way other than out of morbid curiosity. I guess part of the reason to ask is to see if there is any chance it would be OK after that.
 
i wouldn't buy the knife either. as has been here many times before, such things as hardening temperatures are pretty much cast in stone if you want sucessful, repeatable results. Just heat treated a batch of five, was fun as heat index inside my shop was over 100F before i turned the furnace on.
 
That’s the thing about a real high quality custom knife, it is the whole package, not just pretty. There has been no small amount of debate over the role of art in knife making and there is one key stone word that makes custom knives special- “functional”. Functional art is a slightly different beast than other art. I just returned from a trip that allowed me to spend a day at the National Art Gallery enjoying the work of Rembrandt, Titian, Degas, Vermeer, Leonardo, etc. … and I kept coming back to how different functional art is from the work of those masters. Their function was to stop me dead in my tracks and cause my mind to shift gears to deal with the visual tsunami before me.

A very well made art knife can do the same, but in the end it still has to be an effective cutting tool to be a knife. Too many seem to easily forget this basic truth. More than once I have heard somebody mention that their favorite maker does something that is completely counterproductive to a quality cutting tool and then show an image of a well finished blade and proclaim “but you can’t argue with these results.” What results? So the guy makes a pretty knife; if the edge folds or practically crumbles in use it should probably be framed and labeled “art”, but not functional.

Two guys make knives, one chooses the wrong steel and has no idea how to heat treat it but he has training as a jeweler and produces a stunning example of metal working. The other gets the right steel and nails the heat treatment and then spends his time getting the geometry just right for cutting, but has no skill in finishing, the result looks like a seven year old finished it with an angle grinder, but it cuts like crazy. Which one is the knife? Which one do you want to buy? Many people will have different answers to those questions.
 
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