Navin_R_Johnson
Active Member
I heat treated a couple blades from O1 about 10-12 years ago and chalked up its spotty color to a bad process on my part.
Fast forward about 12 years and I just cut out another blade from the same stock I had. This time as I got down to the finer grit belts I could start seeing a spotty pattern before heat treat.
Picture below:
-Top blade was heat treated in gas forge, 5 minute soak and quenched in McMaster oil. I gave it a light etch to see the spots a bit better.
-The bottom blade is pre heat treat and hand rubbed out to get the spots to stand out a bit better. Might be a bit hard to make it out with the shop lighting in the picture. The spot pattern looks just about the same between the two.
Is it just my luck and I got a bad batch of O1 or could I be doing something wrong? Maybe the guy at the mixer threw his left over lunch in the pot?
I do have one finished knife from this stock that shows the same patterns and has been my EDC/shop knife for the last decade. It holds an edge great but I'm not comfortable even giving them away like this.
Fast forward about 12 years and I just cut out another blade from the same stock I had. This time as I got down to the finer grit belts I could start seeing a spotty pattern before heat treat.
Picture below:
-Top blade was heat treated in gas forge, 5 minute soak and quenched in McMaster oil. I gave it a light etch to see the spots a bit better.
-The bottom blade is pre heat treat and hand rubbed out to get the spots to stand out a bit better. Might be a bit hard to make it out with the shop lighting in the picture. The spot pattern looks just about the same between the two.
Is it just my luck and I got a bad batch of O1 or could I be doing something wrong? Maybe the guy at the mixer threw his left over lunch in the pot?
I do have one finished knife from this stock that shows the same patterns and has been my EDC/shop knife for the last decade. It holds an edge great but I'm not comfortable even giving them away like this.
