Quench Wars! -- Side-by-side quench test

[Rusty McDonald]

More normalizing, last heat and cool.

Setting up the oven, I put my oven to 1100 degrees to soak for 20 min to get the steel settled to a even heat in the oven.

then up to 1450F for the final soak for 15 minutes. after that it's in the quench. the pics got out of order but you get the idea.

 

[Rusty McDonald]

The finished product ready to be sent to get rockwell tested.

four set of two, one 1084 one 1090

One set in Water for a control point

One set in Parks #50

One set in McMaster Carr 11 sec quench

One set in Vet grade Mineral Oil.


And my part is done.

Hey Darron you want this oil Back?

 

[Sean Cochran]

Rusty, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. I cant wait to see the results.

 

[Darrin Sanders]

Hey Rusty, glad to see you finished them up!! Can't wait for the results. Thanks again for doing this. And no I don't need the oil back.

 

[deker]

Rusty,

Out of curiosity, why are you not normalizing with the kiln? It seems to me that introducing an uncertain set of temps from a forge at a stage such as normalization could severely skew results. For example, let's say one piece gets overheated a bit. This over heating would affect grain growth and/or carbide formation which could then skew the results for that piece when tested against the rest.

Not trying to rain on your parade or cast aspersions at your technique, I'm just curious.

Thanks for taking the time to do this,

-d

 

[Rusty McDonald]

Deker,
Good question, I guess I could have used the kiln to do this as well. I was very careful not to let them overheat. they never actually went in my forge just at the door, I was acting like a rotisserie and moving them around to make sure they never got too hot and each piece heated as close to the same as I could. They never got over a dull red. You have to admit that even in a kiln there are hot spots, like mine in the back will get hotter than at the door. And these temp differences aren't very noticeable, but I know not to put a long knife in my kiln tip first. I keep the small stuff as close to the temp probe as I can.
Like I said before I wanted to do a real world type quench with as many of the variables as I could the same. Now there may be a piece that is out of tolerance because I used my forge to normalize them. I doubt there is but now the stone is thrown and I cant get it back.
Rusty

 

[deker]

Deker,
Like I said before I wanted to do a real world type quench with as many of the variables as I could the same. Now there may be a piece that is out of tolerance because I used my forge to normalize them. I doubt there is but now the stone is thrown and I cant get it back.

Sorry to monkey things up for you How were you judging the normalization temps? Did you have a pyrometer at the forge door, etc?

I just got my Evenheat and I plan to use it for every stage of heating that isn't forging. This means normalizations, stress relief/spheroidizing, tempering, etc.

-d

 

[Rusty McDonald]

Sorry to monkey things up for you How were you judging the normalization temps? Did you have a pyrometer at the forge door, etc?

I just got my Evenheat and I plan to use it for every stage of heating that isn't forging. This means normalizations, stress relief/spheroidizing, tempering, etc.

-d

You didn't monkey things up. I did it by the color of the steel the way I always do, I just wanted to start with the steel in a semi same state. Now one may have gotten a few degrees more than another but they were all pretty much the same.
And as far as I can tell by using a file all of them are hard as wood peckers lips. But the Mineral oil is a bit softer. and the water did it's job extremely well, But we will see when the results come back.

 

[joe levy]

just recieved the samples in the mail. Will test them as soon as possible. I need to clean off the scale and test the hardness. Hope to do it tonight.

Joe

 

[joe levy]

Sorry for the delay posting this.

1090

Water-60 Rc
Mineral oil-31 Rc
McMaster Carr-29 Rc
Parks-63 Rc

1084

Water-59 Rc
Mineral oil-33 Rc
McMaster Carr-41 Rc
Parks-61 Rc

Not what I was expecting, but it is what I measured.

 

[McClellan Made Blades]

Sorry for the delay posting this.

1090

Water-60 Rc
Mineral oil-31 Rc
McMaster Carr-29 Rc
Parks-63 Rc

1084

Water-59 Rc
Mineral oil-33 Rc
McMaster Carr-41 Rc
Parks-61 Rc

Not what I was expecting, but it is what I measured.

I've got questions, probably some assumptions, but I can't see how the Mcmaster Carr pulled a 41, when I quench, I check it with a file, and it skates across the edge without biting into it. The tests on my knives that I've done, (keep in mind nothig fancy, mostly just abusive chopping) showed no rolled edges, no chips, really just good over all performance. I have chopped seasoned oak for 30 minutes to an hour and still had a serviceable blade, not always hair popping sharp but no rolled edges, or chips. A 41 RC is not hard enough to make a servicable edge, so I'm a bit perplexed with these results. It seems all the others are about where they should be, but from my, admittedly limited, experience, the McMaster Carr, should be holding at least in the higher 50's to have a maintainable edge. Thats it, I'm buying my own tester, that is truly the only way I'll know for a fact if I'm getting the right hardness on my HT. This has been a great experiment, but I think it needs to be done again, because as stated earlier, we are looking for repeatable outcomes. We need to see if they are repeatable, on all accounts, not just the Mcmaster Carr, but the Parks, probably not necessary to do the brine, as most folks arent going to risk their blade to that much stress, I did it once on my very first knife, I still have it ...well, most of the pieces. I have kept it to remind me what not to do, and brine was a heart breaker, as well as a blade breaker. Please keep in mind that was my experience, at the time I was using very thin steel, my grinds where not as good as they could have been, and niether was my finish. So many variables, that can have a pretty big impact on the out come, I think this test would be best repeated by using a basic knife pattern, something simple, smallish, that would be the best way to tell which quench is doing the best. Like Kevin said, Parks is great stuff, but being able to get it, from the strangest company in the world. Not something I want to deal with, that's why I went with McMaster Carr, there is also Hough (sp), from Brownells, that might be another good one to test. I've heard a lot of good things about that, but I've already got the McMaster Carr, so all I need to do is add to it. Pretty interesting stuff, and thanks for doing the tests, would love to see some more on this one, Rex

 

[LRB]

Brine is less apt to crack the steel than plain water. Brine is faster than water, but gives a more even cooling due to the salt. Uneven cooling is the main culpret in cracked blades, according to everything I've read, and the limited experience I've had with brine quench. Going by your figures, there's a lot that just doesn't make since. 1084 should have gotten into the 60"s with a mineral oil quench. I think you have a problem with the testing somewhere. If you have the time, could you review how it was all done? Temps of the steel, quench, ect.

 

[DrThunder88]

Interesting results! Thanks for conducting and posting this experiment. I love forums like KD for this kind of stuff.

 

[Troop]

Great stuff!!! Thanks for posting.

 

[Original]

Yes, very interesting read and thank you for the testing, Kevin did kinda say what the outcome would be, but who want's to deal with that weird company..

 

[jkf96a]

Not what I was expecting to see either. Is 1450 a high enough austentizing temperature for these steels? Would 1475 or 1500 do better?

 

[wdtorque]

Just read the whole thread at once. Not at all what I was expecting. ????? Dozier

 

[Seth Howard]

New to this forum. Love the test!

I think one thing that is not being taken into account it the thickness of the samples. How thick did you use, 1/16 was mentioned and Kevin suggested 1/4. Either of these is thicker that the edge of a blade and thus maybe some of the supprising results. Make steel thin enough and a good wind can harden it. The thicker sections may be showing the various oils actual cooling abilities ... or I could be blowing wind myself.


Seth

 

[Kevin R. Cashen]

...If you would like to test varying thickness in the same piece, grind the sample in steps, I suggest that you start with ¼ stock and remove 1/16” at a time.

The other reason for this stepped sample is that to go with the thinnest possible section is an unforeseen bias in the results. We think the edge is all that counts but any steel with carbon will harden in almost any quench if it is that thin, resulting in no significant differences across your sample data, and making all quenchants appear equal. But you are not testing whether the edge of any given knife will be hard enough, you are testing the quenching ability of various mediums, that will only be reflected in the depth of hardness in increasing thickness. This is how industry measures depth of hardness and the effectiveness of quench...

While the HRC results seem not to make much sense, they are not all that suprising to me. Lots of things beyond the quenchant alone being reflected there. As always, the devil's in the details.

 

[Patrice Lemée]

Well the only thing I know is that I received a pail of Parks so I love the results as they are.

Thanks for doing this, much appreciated.