I've been making knives for a while now but have outsourced my heat treating. I've come into a small propane forge and figured I should take the opportunity to learn how to heat treat some basic steels. Since I already have a few bars of 1084 from Aldo, I figured it'd be best to start with. I have some McMaster-Carr 11 second quench oil arriving tomorrow. My main question is about normalizing/heat cycling.
Before posting this thread I've done a ton of search on the net looking for a straight-up list of the process of thermal cycling/normalizing and hardening in a propane forge, but haven't found anything. I've found a very detailed step-by-step by Kevin Cashen( http://www.knivesby.com/knifemaking-Kevin-Cashen-treating-1084.html ) but the normalizing process requires accurate temperatures and 10min soak times. These are things I'm not sure I'll be able to accurately perform with my propane forge(with no thermocouple). Also, I've heard some folks say to oil quench when heat cycling, others say no. What do you all think?
Now, this isn't forged-worked 1084 I'll be heat treating. Just stock removal. I know grinding can grow grain structure so I bet I could benefit from normalizing. Since I'm not able to assure the temperature(other than being non-magnetic), how can I normalize without the precise steps?
Also, I've read that it's best(w/1084), during hardening, to heat to magnetic and hold for a couple minutes. Is that something I should do even though I can't control temp precisely?
I think I have annealing figured out based on information on the web. 400f for one hour, three times.
Any information you folks could provide me would be greatly appreciated.
Before posting this thread I've done a ton of search on the net looking for a straight-up list of the process of thermal cycling/normalizing and hardening in a propane forge, but haven't found anything. I've found a very detailed step-by-step by Kevin Cashen( http://www.knivesby.com/knifemaking-Kevin-Cashen-treating-1084.html ) but the normalizing process requires accurate temperatures and 10min soak times. These are things I'm not sure I'll be able to accurately perform with my propane forge(with no thermocouple). Also, I've heard some folks say to oil quench when heat cycling, others say no. What do you all think?
Now, this isn't forged-worked 1084 I'll be heat treating. Just stock removal. I know grinding can grow grain structure so I bet I could benefit from normalizing. Since I'm not able to assure the temperature(other than being non-magnetic), how can I normalize without the precise steps?
Also, I've read that it's best(w/1084), during hardening, to heat to magnetic and hold for a couple minutes. Is that something I should do even though I can't control temp precisely?
I think I have annealing figured out based on information on the web. 400f for one hour, three times.
Any information you folks could provide me would be greatly appreciated.
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