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Bending it will not tell you anything about the grain structure. Hardening and breaking will. Destructive testing is subjective as to the intended purpose of the knife in question. A knife intended for dressing an animal would not need to do more than cut well, and hold an edge well. The brass...

Why do you use two different temper heats?

Decarb is a whole different thing than scale. Decarb does not flake off. It is carbon loss in the steel from high heat, and I assume oxygen contact, basically a burning out of the carbon. If you experience decarb, the only practical thing you can do is to remove steel from the surface until you...

With 1/8", it should easily through harden. I would suggest a fast oil such as Parks #50, but Canola oil would probably do near as well with that steel. In my opinion, the slight extra benefit of brine is not worth the risk of losing a blade, but that is your call. I would not heat more than...

Thank you Cliff for the very kind words. I believe you may be over rating my work, but if I have been of any help to you, I am very glad to have been, and you are most welcome. Thanks again, and take care.

Fresh off the bench. A medium sized basic Bowie knife with a 7" x 1 1/4" x 3/16" blade of 01 tool steel, a through tang peened over a 3/16" thick nickel silver butt cap, 1/8" thick nickel silver guard, and a very nice Sambar elk antler grip. This piece of Sambar elk had barely a hint of pith, if...

I believe KenH is correct. Steels that require long soaks at austenitizing heat benefit greatly if you can seal them from oxygen. With air hardening steels, an air tight SS foil envelope is commonly used, but with most oil hardening steels, it takes too long to remove such an envelope for the...

Why would you even suspect that the soap coated piece would break any different than the ATP coated piece, or even a piece with no coating at all? What do you define "crystallization" as being? Any internal change in the steel is going to be dependent on the heat and cooling process, and not...

Was it me, I would just add a piece of all stainless thread to the tang with a lap joint, pinned and brazed. Much simpler under the circumstances.

I use Tandy leather. When all work is finished on a sheath or holster, and it is thoroughly dry, I give it a heavy dose of mineral oil, then let it drain and sit for a few days allowing the oil to equalize through out. I never get rust, even if the knife, or gun stays in the leather 24-7, which...

First anneal, then Bright red-orange, air cool bright red, air cool red just above non-magnetic, air cool Then 1 or 2 of heats just under non-magnetic. If you had an oven, or other heat control, 1650 1550 1450 Then 1 or 2 below non-magnetic

I can see no reason to use a torch to harden a blade when one has an oven with accurate heat control. There is no way to get an accurate even temp with a torch, and no way to accurately provide a decent soak. A fully hardened and tempered blade, then soft backed, makes a stronger blade than an...

I finally got around to making the silver mounted sheath for the last belt knife, plus an extra simpler leather sheath slotted for a belt. The throat is 20ga sterling silver with a brass sash hook. The hook is silver brazed to the throat, and has a reinforcement 3/32" steel pin in the base that...

What kind of Micky Mouse crap am I getting to view a private message? Am I being hacked, or what? I can't receive a PM.

Thanks Cliff, and thanks to all above. Cliff, the grip is not in sections. It is all one piece of curly maple. You are the second person to think that. It's just the border lines I cut to with a small gouge make it look that way in the photos.

Or riflemans knife if you prefer. Just finished a few of days ago. 9 1/2" 01 steel blade, iron guard, sterling silver ferrule and butt cap. Through tang peened over cap. Grip is curly maple with chip carving. I will be making a sterling silver throated center seam sheath with a brass belt hook...

I agree, sounds like over heating or heating for too long.

On some of the early type knives I make, peening is necessary in order to be historically correct, but it takes a lot of care to do so without striking the scale material. Even being very careful, sometimes it happens anyway.

If you will drill holes in the tang, the epoxy will form bridges from one scale to the other, making a very strong bond independent of the metal to scale bond. Even with horn. I most often swiss cheese mine. It takes a torch to get the scales off. A hammer will not break that bond. I've tried...

Most 120V ovens are notoriously slow to come up to the high temps. Hours compared to minutes from the complaints I've read. I have an Evenheat 220V, and even it takes a while to come up to 1475° and even out. I think less than an hour, but don't remember exactly.