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Heat Treating and Metallurgy Discussion of heat treatment and metallurgy in knife making.

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  #1  
Old 01-24-2009, 03:57 PM
Martin Brandt Martin Brandt is offline
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file steel HT

Hello, New poster here. I'm having trouble heat treating some knives and fire steels made from file steel. Older files, and even simons. I can't seem to get a very deep quench while edge quenching at about 3/4" depth. Am getting maybe 3/16" deep hamon, and the fire steels RC'd at about45-50 after a 325 temper. Mineral oil quench. Anyone with experience using file steels?? 10 series and 52100 and many misc. scrap steels I've had little problem with, but this has puzzled me. I'm headed for risky water quench next, I think.
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  #2  
Old 01-24-2009, 05:36 PM
son_of_bluegras son_of_bluegras is offline
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I've played some with old files. Some are case hardened and worthless for making knives out of. Others seem to fall into one of two catagories. One heat treats like 1095, the other takes a bit longer soak.
My first thoughts are
Have you done this before and it worked? If so what has changed?
How did you determine them correct temp for quenching?
What is your heat treating set-up?
Did you soak for any length of time or does your set-up allow for a reliable soak?
Did you warm the oil?
Did you check for hardness after quenching (commonly done with a good file)?

The more details of what you've done the better answers you'll get.

ron


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  #3  
Old 01-25-2009, 01:07 AM
Martin Brandt Martin Brandt is offline
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Ron, Let me see now. Haven't done files before. Gas forge with venturi burner of my own design. Did not soak at quench temp. Used magnet and a little longer to get a bit past nonmagnetic. Used warm mineral oil for quench at 150 degrees F for blade, and cold oil for fire steels. Blade appears to have gotten harder, but only shallowly...3/16" in from edge. Had a nice but very shallow hamon. I suspect that this type steel may need a soak at temp. as the very edge got hard/heated faster and therefore had a bit more soak time than the rest of the blade. Checked with worn trianglular file after quench. I do have a stainless tube to create a muffle, and a dial pyrometer I could use for temp monitoring and control of soak temp. if I knew temp and time for this type/types of steel. Both were hicarbon steel by spark test. One of very old origin for the blade , and the other was a Simmons metal file. I'm guessing they are some kind of W series steel. Did not get the kind of scale pop off that I normally see from say 1084, or 5160 in the quenched area. Is that better info.?
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  #4  
Old 01-25-2009, 04:54 AM
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Andrew Garrett Andrew Garrett is offline
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I used a lot of Nicholson files early on and still keep a pile of them in my shop. They make awesome knives. I HT exactly like 1095.

...never used anything else.


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  #5  
Old 01-25-2009, 08:07 AM
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Crex Crex is offline
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I'm just an old dummy I guess, but what is "fire steel"? What is it's normal application?
Most quality files should respond as mentioned above with a "1095" treatment and maybe some minor tweaking. Simmons have always responded well to the HT I use for Nicholson's.
Yeah, there are a lot of junk files out there, but anyone with a little common understanding of steel, fire, and quench should be able to cull them out quickly.
Probably best to stick to known mfgr.s if you don't have the time or want-to to do a little simple testing.


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  #6  
Old 01-25-2009, 11:07 PM
son_of_bluegras son_of_bluegras is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Brandt
Ron, Let me see now. Haven't done files before. Gas forge with venturi burner of my own design. Did not soak at quench temp. Used magnet and a little longer to get a bit past nonmagnetic. Used warm mineral oil for quench at 150 degrees F for blade, and cold oil for fire steels. Blade appears to have gotten harder, but only shallowly...3/16" in from edge. Had a nice but very shallow hamon. I suspect that this type steel may need a soak at temp. as the very edge got hard/heated faster and therefore had a bit more soak time than the rest of the blade. Checked with worn trianglular file after quench. I do have a stainless tube to create a muffle, and a dial pyrometer I could use for temp monitoring and control of soak temp. if I knew temp and time for this type/types of steel. Both were hicarbon steel by spark test. One of very old origin for the blade , and the other was a Simmons metal file. I'm guessing they are some kind of W series steel. Did not get the kind of scale pop off that I normally see from say 1084, or 5160 in the quenched area. Is that better info.?
Sounds like your forge and general technique are in the ballpark so we need to refine the details. If the file steel approximates 1095 you don't need much of a soak for what you have. If the file steel has other alloying elements then it may benefit from a short soak of 30-60 seconds. I've worked with one Simmons file and it did fine with a 1095 style heat treat.
Cold oil is slower than warm oil. I know it sounds counter-intuitive but that is the way it is. Heat the oil for both.
If the file used to test after quench is too worn, you'll falsely think the steel gat harder than it really did.
I work in coal or charcoal and find the muffle makes for more consistancy.
The edge will heat faster so the spine should be closer to the heat source if at all possible. And the tip will heat even faster making it prone to overheating. You can cool the edge and tip with a careful quick dip in the quench medium so long as they haven't gotten too hot. I do this with my tips in an attempt to avoid overheating them, sometimes it works, sometimes not.
If you have any doubts about the temperature you could try the pyrometer, I don't have one.

One more thing to worry about. You need to move with a purpose when heat treating 1095. You have something under 1 second to get the blade or fire steel from around 1500 F down to below 900 F. Any delay from the fire to the quench and you may miss your window and not get the results you want.

ron


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  #7  
Old 01-26-2009, 08:51 AM
Martin Brandt Martin Brandt is offline
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Ron, And others. Thanks for the input. I reheat treated the firesteels,( strike a lite's, or flint and steel, sparkmakers, for the fellow who questioned what they were) last night, and used water to quench in. They came out Rc 58 on the really old file, and 60-62 on the Simmonds. Tempered at 325 one hour. Rechecked Rc and the old one had increased from 58 to 62-64, and the Simmonds from 60-62 to66-68. To me this indicates that they need some amount of soak time at quench temp. I had brought them up a bit past nonmagnetic and quenched in water right at forge mouth quickly. Wow, water shuts down the incandescence really fast compared to oil, and warps a lot more too. Anyone know where I can find good quality heat treat oil that is very fast like water? I tried to locate some a while ago but came up with an offer for 50 gallons only. About $4-500.00 if i remember correctly. That's just a bit more than I need. Five gallons is more my size, or two gallons. Hate to have to do the resale thing on 50 gallons. Just more hassel than I want.
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  #8  
Old 01-26-2009, 10:06 AM
Wade Holloway Wade Holloway is offline
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Martin there is a guy on another forum that gets some Parks and sells it in 5 gallons at a time. If you want his contact PM me and I will get if for you. Not sure about the ethics of listing another forum here. Also you might try Darren Ellis, sometimes he has it in small quanties.
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  #9  
Old 01-26-2009, 12:42 PM
LRB LRB is offline
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If you did not normalize, that would probably account for warpage. If all you want to do is fire steels, don't temper. Also, a brine quench is better than plain water as the salt prevents a lot of the vapor jacket, and gives a more even quench which also results in less warp. Tempering the file steel, or 1095, lessens the produced sparks. I don't bother with the brine, but do normalize. In bringing up to quench heat, lose the magnet. What you're looking for is around 1500?. Non-magnetic is only 1414?. Let the steel go to bright red-orange in dim light. On a flintlock gun the frizzen is tempered, but the flint is striking much harder, and faster than one can strike by hand, and if not tempered would surely break. A fire steel needs all the hardness it can get in order to throw really good sparks. Yes, they can be a tad fragile, but that is to be expected with fire steels, in most cases. After hardening, if breakage is a big concern, protect the striking area, and soften the rest.
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  #10  
Old 01-26-2009, 04:44 PM
son_of_bluegras son_of_bluegras is offline
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Color can be tricky to use as an indicator. You need to get use to what the specific colors look like to your eyes. And that will vary based on ambient lighting which means it is very important to judge by eye under the same conditions each time. It is possible to train yourself to see the descalescence (I know that isn't spelled right) which is a darkening of the glow as the steel uses some of that energy to change its crystaline structure. It happens fast and it needs to be fairly dark to see it well. It is more reliable than just using "red-orange".

ron


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  #11  
Old 01-26-2009, 07:57 PM
Dan Kenyon Dan Kenyon is offline
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Mike Krall gave me this info on a question I posted on heat treating 1080 steel
Dan,

Some times Darren Ellis has Park #50 and Park AAA by the gallon or more.

You can get in touch with Houghton International and buy in small quantity (5 gallon). Houghto-quench "K" is as fast as Park 50 and is more stabile. Houghto-quench "G" is a tiny bit slower than Park AAA and is more stabile... AAA will be a little slower than "G" after using a while. If you want smaller quantity of Houghto-quench "G", it is what Brownell's sells as "Tough Quench" and can be bought by the gallon.

Don Fogg uses (read this a few years ago so it may be past tense) Brownell's Tough Quench for "fast steels". Scott McKenzie who is Houghton's metallugist and quench oil specialist (posts at BS and SFI) says "G" is plenty fast enough for 10xx steels... like it's rare to quench something over 1/4" at the thick part and most quench oils will handle that.

McMaster-Carr has an "11 second" and a "28 second" quench oil in 1, 5 and larger containers. The supplier is Motor Oil, Inc. I've not been able to get indepth information from the seller or the supplier. 11 seconds is not as fast as Park 50 or H-q "K" but may be fast enough... can't tell without further information.

Chevron bought Texaco so both company's quench oils are available there. Chevron has bulk plants and bulk plant distributors all over the place. Supposedly some of their quench oils are available in 5 gal. quantity. They have a pretty fast oil and a medium oil, among others. Chevron has been easy for me to get info from. Their website has links for e-mail to tech support.

If you live in or near any HT-ing, they may be willing to let you have a small amount for a small amount. They would have oil data so a person could tell what they were dealing with.

Mike
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  #12  
Old 01-27-2009, 07:08 AM
LRB LRB is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by son_of_bluegras
Color can be tricky to use as an indicator. You need to get use to what the specific colors look like to your eyes. And that will vary based on ambient lighting which means it is very important to judge by eye under the same conditions each time. It is possible to train yourself to see the descalescence (I know that isn't spelled right) which is a darkening of the glow as the steel uses some of that energy to change its crystaline structure. It happens fast and it needs to be fairly dark to see it well. It is more reliable than just using "red-orange".

ron
This is relatively true. However, in any case, the magnet test is pretty much a useless exercise for gaugeing quench temps.
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