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Ed Caffrey's Workshop Talk to Ed Caffrey ... The Montana Bladesmith! Tips, tricks and more from an ABS Mastersmith. |
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#1
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Normalizing procedure
My understanding of normalizing was to take the blade up close to critical and then let cool in air until room temperature. Some of the local guys, including an ABS Journeyman Smith just let the red fade to black in their blades for normalizing. This is certainly quicker, but which is more right, or does it particularly matter? These guy's make some great blades so I can't argue with their procdure, especially when I don't have enough practical experience myself. Thanks -Guy Thomas |
#2
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Howdy Guy! The way you explained is OK for plain carbon steels such as O-1 or 1095 and the likes. If your talking 5160 or 52100, then your loosing preformance if your doing it that way! For both of these steels there is a noticable imporvement in the grain structure, toughness, and edge retention if the normailizing is conducted by heating to just critical, and then allowing to cool TO ROOM TEMP in still air. I noramilize three times for 5160 or 52100. Another piece of the puzzle that makes these two steels even better comes with the multiple quench. By allowing the blade to cool down in the oil between quenches, it works on the grain structure as an annealing cycle would.....creating a finer, tighter grain with each of the three hardening/cooling cycles. Don't take may work for it....try it! It takes about a week to harden and temper a 52100 blade, but it will cut the socks off of most others! |
#3
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Hi Ed, I was curiuos as to how much oil your quench tank holds? I have been quenching in a 5gal. bucket up to this point,so far I can get well past the 90 degree bend with no problem but it will only come back to about 45 degrees. so I guess it is time to start doing all the little extras like heating my oil and such. Justin |
#4
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Justin, That's fine and dandy! My MS test blade came back to about 45 degrees. Your not going to get a blade that will pass all the ABS tests, and come back completely from a 90 degree bend. Sounds to me like your doing fine. As for those little extras, they are what will seperate your blades from others in the minds of your customers. |
#5
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OOPPPSSS! Forgot the oil! My tanks is was made by cutting a 24" piece of 8"X4"X1/4" wall tubing in half lengthwise, and then welding a cap on each end. Holds about 1 1/2" gal. of oil. More oil just makes it harder to pre-heat and control the temp during hardening. |
#6
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Thanks for your help Justin |
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blade, knife |
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dmiller, Ironmen77, lsknives, mike kinzell, scooternut, SDhammer |
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