Ed in your heat treat research with 1095 did you harden any blades in water or brime? I noticed on the last 1095 post a lot of makers were hardening 1095 in water or brime. My experiment with edge hardening 1095 in water resulted in a cracked edge . The edge or clay tempered blade probably should be an interupted quench? The 1095 blades in the last post seem to be full hardened no interupted quench. The fully hardened blade edge would not expand like an edge quenched blade would and might not crack as easy. I have not had any problems edge quenching in oil, just would know the methods for hardening 1095 in water or brime without destroying the blade.
Thanks
B L Howard, Long Hunter Forge

I'm not Ed so I hope you don't mind my 2 cents. Brine is safer than fresh water due to reduced steam pockets. Interupted quench is good. When quenching 1095, in and out very fast is what I do - blade is not in the brine more than 1 sec at a time.

MLH, on the blade you cracked using a water quench, do you remember what kind of normalizing procedure you used?

I am fairly new to this but when I first started looking at heat treating and what not I read in a couple of places that steel manufacturers actually use a brine quench but they call it a water quench.

I have made a few items from 1095 and used a brine quench with no adverse effects. I just do a straight quench.

ghostdog

Thanks for your answer Dennis.
How long do you do the 1 sec. in and out quench. Thanks this is the kind of information i am looking for, different methods from start to finish on quenching 1095 in water or brime.
Thanks B L Howard, Long Hunter Forge

Thanks for your answer ghostdog. I normalized three and did a sub critical anneal in ashes. I think the problem was an uninteruped edge quench, did you harden the whole blade?
Thanks
B L Howard, Long Hunter Forge

Hey Mississippi,

I know you probably read some of the earlier 1095 post where I described my process - although I'm not quenching pure 1095. Nevertheless I am using the critical temp range for 1095 as where I take my blades both during normalizing and final hardening heats.

Quick recap:

1 Forge roughly to shape.
2 Grinding to 180 preferrably 220 grit and rounding sharp corners.
3 Three normalizations in forge set to 1475 cycling to black, soaking at temp for at least 30 sec.
4 Final heat again at 1475, soaking for 1 min at temp.
5 Quench in brine heated to 150 degrees: temper immediately.
6 Temper 3 times for one hour at 400 in electric oven.

My observation concerning my steel and processes is that extremely careful attention to the actual temps made a huge difference. Only had a few cracks in the past six months- usually when I cheated on the grit. Edge quenching is bound to be more stressful ( for both of you...) but I have -heard- 1095 referred to as good for the process due to it's shallow quenching nature.

Also it is my understanding that when the term '...water quench,' is used it almost always refers to heated brine...( I think I saw this on Howard Clark's site as well as hearing it anecdotally...) It is also my understanding that brine is quicker but less shocking than water due to the absence of violent steam reactions as stated above.

Thanks J LOOSE for your answer. Quenching 1095 in brime seems to be pushing the your luck. But a lot of people seems to think you get a better blade if it survives the quench.
Thanks
B L Howard, Long Hunter Forge

According to Admiral Steels's web-site, 1095 is a water-quench steel:

www.admiralsteel.com/refe...attrt.html (http://www.admiralsteel.com/reference/heattrt.html)

This was news to me... I thought I was pushing the envelope a bit too... but very rarely now do I crack a blade.

I was only getting partial hardening with my blades in oil, which I only know because the etching process revealed small areas that etched differrently. Without the etch I might never have known.

MLH - Sorry it took awhile to get back to you. Brine cools so fast that by the third or forth in/out cycle, the blade is cool enough to handle. Al Pendray does a demo where he quenches 52100 and 5160 in oil and/or brine. The blade is not in the quenchant for more than 1 sec. Just enough to cool below 1000 degrees ( refered to as the "nose" in TTT charts ). He then alows it to air cool to room temp and the blade is hard. Less stress in the blade, too. I've done it with O-1 but not 1095. Try it!

Thanks for your answer Dennis. Sounds similar to a method used for cable i heard about. In brime long enough to miss the nose and then into oil to finish cooling. About 1 sec in the brime before going to oil.