Search results

No need for the long soak with 10XX. Olive oil may not fast enough, if you have to use a vegetable oil go canola, it is faster. But the best bet is an actual fast quench oil designed to replace water. 10 min. in oven atmosphere would very strongly suggest decarb.

The question of oil to use for the steel is actually very simple- ask yourself if, under any circumstances, you would feel safe quenching that steel in water. #50 was made to replace water with is quench speed, if quenching your chosen alloy in water gives you pause, Parks #50 is probably too...

Enough to bring the iron atoms close enough to be tempted to contribute their electrons to the shared metallic bond. With no interference, this can be relatively little pressure, however, the more perfect the mating surfaces the closer we can get those atoms when asking them to shake hands. Two...

AAA. Why = Chromium

I have had plenty of local folks, who don't fully understand what I do, show up at my door with a factory knife that needs a repair. If it is one off thing, I will invite them in the shop and give them a half hour of my time to have their pride and joy looking right again. The most common...

Before any of the folks involved were involved, months before the pilot episode, somebody had to bring the initial production crew up to speed on what bladesmithing even was. There was lots of time on the phone with producers developing the concept. Folks have no idea what the original contract...

Hey Fitzo (Mike)! Good to hear from you again. Between here and the ABS site, is about all the forum activity I deal with anymore. I can relax more here, since I built, or am still building the new ABS site.

Absolutely. One of the most common questions that I get is what tempering temperature will give you a specific Rockwell number. I always have to say- sorry, I can't honestly give you that as it is way to subjective to all the previous heat treatments for that blade, and anybody who says they...

If you could have had 65, and got 63, the iron matrix has only about .5% carbon in solution (rough estimate). The remainder could be pearlite, from an insufficient quench or, more likely, in the form of undissolved carbide. Tempering doesn't know what your initial wishes were, and will simply...

I always increase in increments of 25°F, and generally 5 minute increments when adjusting time.

I can rule out the quench, Parks #50 is much too fast for an alloy steel, although 5160 is one most likely to survive it. I would first look to proper solution. 1525°F is spot on for this steel. My standard soak for an alloy is 10 minutes, but that is with faster heating equipment than an...

^^^^What he said!^^^^

Tempering is the absolute least likely thermal treatment to produce distortion, unless the blade is laying on it side or touching another blade, i.e. heated unevenly, during the initial heat up right after hardening. There are, however, plenty of opportunities during tempering, to straighten...

I decided to break this into two posts to keep it easier to follow. As to the number of heats resulting in distortion- only if it produces strain effects and, more importantly, uneven strain effects. Just heating the steel could induce, or reduce strain energy, depending on how you cool it...

The timing and application of the different thermal treatments are all based on what changes you are hoping affect in the steel. To the key question of distortion, the contributing factors are endless and uncountable, but the root cause is always the same- uneven potential energy created by...

Thank you for your confidence in me Chris. I am quick to say that I am not the final authority on what happens inside of your blade, but I do insist on always backing my recommendations up with solid data and facts, while asking you never to take anybody's opinion or word for it, including my...

Sometimes it can take quite a few tests to dial it all in, but you may have found the timing with your batch. The time for solution should be the same for any steel of identical chemistry, but that is not the case. Prior thermal history plays an equal, if not more important role in the amount of...

Like Ed said, 10 minutes is a bit overkill for such a simple steel. The only alloying here is the nickel and it does not engage the carbon so solution should be easy. If you are doing the coupons anyhow I would start at 1 minute and add minutes to coupons and see where the HRC levels out for...

Well... There will be large amounts of scale and decarb in the static atmosphere of an oven. Many folks will still use some sort of barrier to protect the blade. This is probably more often anti-scale since the foil envelope presents some unique challenges to the fast quench requirements of...

Not Parks #50, it is a replacement for water, ad nobody would want to quench O-1 in water. The AAA is the stuff for O-1, or the MacMaster Carr. Any medium speed oil will do, since O-1 is meant for oil hardening. The quenchant is rarely the tricky part with O-1, but rather getting it to proper...