Quenching knives

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AJMD429
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Quenching knives

Post by AJMD429 »

.
https://youtu.be/BR1boS3ci88

This was an interesting video comparing quenching with oil and water and even liquid nitrogen.
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GunnyMack
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Re: Quenching knives

Post by GunnyMack »

When I attended Trinidad gummsmiff skool we had to make a large portion of our hand tools. We had to make all of our wood working chisels and gouges. They were all hand forged O1( Black Diamond) , polishing rods were made of drill rod. We also had to make flat( vee) springs. These were quenched in oil and tempered in molten lead.
Our chisels we tempered by color. The most dramatic is of course when we did color case work. When the crucible came out of the oven, knock the lid off and then dumped into a 55 gal drum of water- SPLOOSH the charcoal would go everywhere ! I did color case a Mauser, got fantastic colors but the rear bridge warped. When we tried to tweak it back it broke at the bolt stop. Had to anneal it , weld it & reshape the bridge. It was sent out for commercial heat treatment and I blued it. Was a 6mm Remington that I sold like an idiot!
I also made a knife, we used 440C which is air hardening.
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Blaine
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Re: Quenching knives

Post by Blaine »

Where's Grizz? He runs a forge in his shop.
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Walt
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Re: Quenching knives

Post by Walt »

Very cool, Gunny! Fascinating and such a great foundation for smithing.
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Re: Quenching knives

Post by piller »

That was cool. Steel changes properties based on what and how much of other things are mixed in.
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wvfarrier
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Re: Quenching knives

Post by wvfarrier »

For non-food related knives I use motor oil heated to about 175° and for food knives I use room temp olive oil. The steel I use is mainly 5160
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Grizz
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Re: Quenching knives

Post by Grizz »

I use heated canola oil for 5160 and 1084. I had a blade break on an accidental drop-test.

the thing I didn't learn from the video was the tempering info. were these untempered? except for the liquid nitrogen quench, which perhaps was tempered by the integral cryo step.

another thing, the blades were not edge ground, which changes how they react to temper-ature changes. and conventional blacksmith technique uses tempering to set up steel for it's designed use. it determines the 'toughness' of the final product, and sets the grain structure. an essential part of the micro crystalline structure.

i would have liked to see a break test and images of the grain size in each sample. it would have been good to make actual blades out of the blanks and cycle them through the ABS journeyman tests for better info....

maybe his sponsors will fund that study.

some basic info >

https://knifesteelnerds.com/2020/05/01/ ... fe-steels/

https://knifesteelnerds.com/2020/07/13/ ... ng-knives/



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Re: Quenching knives

Post by Gobblerforge »

Thanks. Nice tests but not enough with only two drops. I did see that when he quenched the water he didn't move the steel up and down as well as side to side. This made me think he was making a hard line. He did and that is where it broke. Having made all of my knives with damascus from all kinds of steel and iron I never know what I have. I always quench in used motor oil at a bright orange pointing north and south with the edge up. My luck has been good. I have had a few that didn't seem like the hardening went well enough, so they got a second hardening. Tempering is another step that is ripe for discussion. So many ways and ideas. Then there is normalizing which I have never gotten into the habit of. When dealing with layers of metal that have been forge welded and drawn to a thousandth of an inch thick, what is normal anymore?
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Re: Quenching knives

Post by piller »

Used motor oil is what I learned with. 10w30. I was also taught to temper the blade at 400 degrees or more for at least an hour after the quench. The few blades I have made turned out pretty good for the most part. A couple were failures. I know a little, but not enough to do it professionally.
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Re: Quenching knives

Post by Grizz »

piller wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 11:58 am Used motor oil is what I learned with. 10w30. I was also taught to temper the blade at 400 degrees or more for at least an hour after the quench. The few blades I have made turned out pretty good for the most part. A couple were failures. I know a little, but not enough to do it professionally.
sounds good. tempering is conditioned by which steel you are using and what you will use the blade for. I learned to gauge the temper by the color, and can work up to the hardness I'd like with additional temper cycles. I tried using a toaster oven with a thermocouple. The temps were all over the place. Now I use the gas oven in the kitchen. 1084 is stupid simple to heat treat, and a gratifying steel to start with.

5160 is actually a little harder because it's easy to overheat it and enlarge the grain. Watching "forged in fire" that is one of the most common scenes, the guy over heats the blade, plunges it into the oil, takes it out too soon, and it tests soft BEFORE the steel has actually gone through the internal processes. THEN they heat if up MORE and plunge it into oil for NOT LONG ENOUGH, and get the same results. Those are the blades that crack, and break, and have huge grain. I have done this EXACT SAME THING, learning by doing :!: :lol:

I learned something from an article at the link I posted, where he "normalized" the steel before the heat treat. this converts the steel to pearlite, which converts to martensite very quickly in a forge, and allows a blade to be quenched as soon as it becomes non-magnetic, without necessity of long soak times. This is for the simple steels heating in a forge rather than a kiln or oven. There are numerous examples in the articles on heat treating.

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Re: Quenching knives

Post by piller »

Knowing which steel you are using and what its needs are will be a help. The person who taught me kept hammering it into my head that going too hot would ruin most steel. On Forged in Fire, there are several who have overheated their steel and quenched it when it was too hot. I have to admit that I did that a few times when I was learning. The knives I did that to were brittle and not good for much. I now go for a red color range. Orange is too hot for my skill set. Since none of my vehicles use conventional motor oil anymore, I have switched to heavy mineral oil for quenching oil. It does not catch fire and the carbon steels seem to be better at keeping an edge since the change. ATS 34 is not something I have had any luck with. 440C is hard to sharpen, but it is good for everything I have tried it on.
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Re: Quenching knives

Post by GunnyMack »

I despise ats34 ! I had a Benchmade that would not take an edge, I spent many hours changing angles on the Lansky sharpener. I even sent it back to Benchmade and they claimed they changed the bevel and sharpened it. Still dull as chicken doo. I was joyful the day I lost it! Now its Kershaw clipped to my pocket everyday.
My preferred steel now is D2, although I'm buying blades,although I also like AUS8.
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Re: Quenching knives

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GunnyMack wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 3:16 pm I despise ats34 ! I had a Benchmade that would not take an edge, I spent many hours changing angles on the Lansky sharpener. I even sent it back to Benchmade and they claimed they changed the bevel and sharpened it. Still dull as chicken doo. I was joyful the day I lost it! Now its Kershaw clipped to my pocket everyday.
My preferred steel now is D2, although I'm buying blades,although I also like AUS8.
Glad I am not the only one having an issue with ATS34. It helps me to realize that I am not alone. I like D2 for EDC knives. It doesn't rust on me if I keep it clean after use, and the edge stays about the same as long as I don't do stupid stuff to it. I had a Camillus Lever Action in AUS8, and it never held an edge. It might have been improperly heat treated at the factory. Other AUS8 knives I have had were about equal to a good Buck 110 in 420 steel. To me, that level it about the minimum I consider to be good. I find that S30V just does not hold an edge as long as I think it should. A good high carbon blade such as 1085, or Old Chevy Spring, has been pretty good for me as long as I clean it after use. The best 1085 I ever had was one which had been hand forged, quenched in used motor oil, and tempered about 450 degrees for 12 hours. It got stolen when I was in the Army.
D. Brian Casady
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GunnyMack
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Re: Quenching knives

Post by GunnyMack »

piller wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 12:34 pm
GunnyMack wrote: Fri Jan 27, 2023 3:16 pm I despise ats34 ! I had a Benchmade that would not take an edge, I spent many hours changing angles on the Lansky sharpener. I even sent it back to Benchmade and they claimed they changed the bevel and sharpened it. Still dull as chicken doo. I was joyful the day I lost it! Now its Kershaw clipped to my pocket everyday.
My preferred steel now is D2, although I'm buying blades,although I also like AUS8.
Glad I am not the only one having an issue with ATS34. It helps me to realize that I am not alone. I like D2 for EDC knives. It doesn't rust on me if I keep it clean after use, and the edge stays about the same as long as I don't do stupid stuff to it. I had a Camillus Lever Action in AUS8, and it never held an edge. It might have been improperly heat treated at the factory. Other AUS8 knives I have had were about equal to a good Buck 110 in 420 steel. To me, that level it about the minimum I consider to be good. I find that S30V just does not hold an edge as long as I think it should. A good high carbon blade such as 1085, or Old Chevy Spring, has been pretty good for me as long as I clean it after use. The best 1085 I ever had was one which had been hand forged, quenched in used motor oil, and tempered about 450 degrees for 12 hours. It got stolen when I was in the Army.
S30V is awesome steel ,what a buddy found was using his Work Sharp Sharper he could gut 6 deer before the edge went. The Work Sharp puts a nice radius bevel edge on.
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