Enlighten Me

Fross

Fross

Well-Known Member
Guys, I have been working with ATS-34, 1080, and 01 for a while now and have decided to give 1095 a go. I use peanut oil for all of these steels and have awesome results but know this not to be true with 1095.

My question is what products are available that aren't $58.00 a gallon? The tough quench from Brownells seems nice but I cant justify $200 on 3 gallons of oil right now. So I am looking for a good alternative that I CAN FIND cause I know parks #50 is good but I need 3 gallons and dont want to drop a crazy amount of money on it. If you can recommend anything please do and if you can give me a resource for getting the stuff, Im guessing anything faster than a 10 second oil will work, I have even entertained getting a polymer based quench but dont know where to find them. Thanks
 
Fross,

Because we're in the same boat (I'd love 5 gallons of Parks 50 but haven't got it yet) I'll share my experience with you.

I've made some knives from 1095 and quenched in Canola oil and got some cool natural hamons but that's really pretty much the luck of the draw as to where the hamon forms. Ive found that I could NOT get 5/32" 1095 to form martinsite with a conala quench so in seekin to fully harden a 5/32" thick blade I decided to give brine a try.

I did HT a sacrifical blade 1st just to see what would happen. It turned out fine and fully hardedned so I've sense made two addition blades that have been successfully brine quenched.

The caveat here is that from reading of others experiences it can be expected that you'll lose 30 to 50% of blades to the dreaded PING (cracking).

I'm assuming that I've gotten lucky with the first three blades ending up with three survivors, LOL.

My method was this.

5 gallon bucket a couple inches from the top with water. Stir in table salt until it floats an egg.

Heat blade to 1475 and give a 2 second quench into the brine then drop into room temp Canola oil for approx. 30 seconds. At this point the blade is room temp.

Wash the oil off with dish detergent and straight into a pre-heated tempering oven.

- The big problem with using brine is the risk of losing the blade to cracking not speed of the quench so I figure as long as your willing to risk losing the blade (I can always make another right, lol) then go for it and see what happens.

Hope this helps,

-Josh
 
Like Josh, I've done my 1095 with brine with good results over the years. Failure rate went down dramaticly with multiple normalizing cycles before quenching. Mcmaster-Carr has a 11 second oil for short money. Although I have some around here someplace, I can't say how well it works or if it's fast enough because I havn't used it for anything yet. Don Foggs site has info on polymer quenchants, it's a sticky on a page I saw.

Rudy
 
Thanks guys, I will look up the polymers, I plan on working with rather large blades 12"-16" long and up to 2" in height so I really dont want any risk of stress cracks.. as that is a lot to just start over on and I do not get into the shop as much as I would like so I have to make my efforts count.
 
The problem with 1095 is that it will fool you into thinking it is hard when it really isn't. A file may skate across it, but that only tells you some martensite did form. ATF and motor oils do not cool 1095 fast enough to give full or even good martensite. Even Parks #50 will not give a complete conversion, but is as good as it gets using oil, and will form enough martensite for a very fine blade. Canola oil is considered a close second to Parks #5o according to test reports I've read, but brine is one of the few quenches that will bring 1095 to it's max.
 
Houghton has oils that are the equivalent of Parks and they are one heck of a lot easier to deal with. I went to their web site www.houghtonintl.com , called and was given a local contact number. I wound up with 5 gallons of industrial quench oil for just over $25 a gallon.


Seth
 
Seth Howard said:
Houghton has oils that are the equivalent of Parks and they are one heck of a lot easier to deal with. I went to their web site www.houghtonintl.com , called and was given a local contact number. I wound up with 5 gallons of industrial quench oil for just over $25 a gallon.


Seth
Click to expand...

Thank you for posting this Seth, Houghton is my first recommendation for people seeking good and available quenchants, they are the biggest supplier of these products and may have been making quality quenchants longer than anybody else. Your experience in contrast with how other quenchant manufacturers treat potential customers explains why Houghton deserves our business.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top