knife edge

I would say yes based on the fact that I have successfully heat treated a blade that had a rough edge to it. They were situations where the edge turned out to be too soft and had to be retreated. From advice that I was given at the time I needed to cut the heat back on the forge to bring the blade up to temperature slowly and evenly and not to overheat. A little edge quenching and the returning the blade to the fire also helped. Also the method of quenching would also come into play. Marquenching would probably cause less distortion of the edge than a regular quench into warm oil and oil might be a better choice than water if dealing with a sharp(ish) edge. I know that a lot has been writen on these boards about not making the edge no thinner that a dime before quenching and, admittedly, I try to observe that rule but I think a finer edge is not the recipe for dissaster that it's made out to be.

Doug
 
I agree with Doug. Your still good to HT.

You'll have MUCH less meat left to deal with any warp post hardening BUT as long as you dont get any warp you'll be just fine.

At .018 you've really still got quite a bit of "edge" there to remove decarb for a skinner blade. After HT finish grind to about .010 or so and you'll be golden.

If you do get some warp or "snake edge" during hardening just profile a little off the edge to thicken it up a little.

My biggest fear with your thin edge ON 1095 would be that the edge drops below optimum hardening temp before making it into the quench because that thin steel will NOT hold heat very long. I'd be sure your quench tank is close to your heat source so you can come out of the forge/oven and into the quench without delay OR trying to run across the room trying to get to the quench.

Good luck- Josh
 
Great info Josh... Thank you for summarizing it that way. And I like the "dime" measurement too... that's what I keep in mind when I'm getting one ready for HT.
 
thanks for the reply fellas.i should mention that i cannot heat treat myself yet. will be sending to peters heat treating.if you think its still ok ill leave it.i thought about grinding the edge back a little making blade less wide if you will.
 
Gobbler,

I doubt this will present any problems for Peters.

If I were you I'd send it AS-IS UNLESS you don't mind profiling a bit off the edge.

Reason being- If you profile some back now you've removed some of your "sacrifical meat" that you'll need to remove after HT. It could very well turn out that you have to go further post HT to deal with decarb at the edge by profiling the edge down a second time.

Best case- No warp during HT and a finish grind is all thats needed to remove decarb.

Worst case- you end up having to reprofile making the blade a little less wide at that point.


I'm DEFINATELY terrible with overthinking things sometime. In your case here it's really probably a mute point because your blade is a thin profile it should fully harden which really gives you the ability to do ANYTHING with your blade post HT. If needed you could easily profile back to .050 at the edge and basically start from scratch after HT.

Also- since your using Peters you shouldn't need to worry about overheating the edge like Doug mentioned. With controlled temps you just soak the blade till it's evenly up to temp without worry about the problems associated with overheating.

I'd also mention that from my experience warp during the quench is MORE a product of the condition of the steel and the stress than the thickness. A nice even grind on annealed steel for stock removal knifemaking is about as good as it gets for reducing warp. Point being- Thick or Thin- If it's gonna warp it's gonna warp.

Dealing with any warp is a whole other can of worms, LOL

Take care- Josh
 
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