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High-Performance Blades Sharing ideas for getting the most out of our steel.

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  #1  
Old 03-03-2005, 10:27 AM
Riley White Riley White is offline
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What do you think Jerry?

I am new to Knife Network but not new to making knives. I have a number of questions about some things I want to try in making knives. And wanted your opinion of them, Jerry and others.
While working with metals I have learned that steel doesn?t conduct heat as well as brass, copper and other non-ferrous metals. The idea of plate quenching that I heard others speak of always involved steel plates. I thought of trying this years ago but intended to quench only the edge of the blade leaving the spine and back to cool in the air. And I intended to grind a piece of brass to the shape of the blade. That alone stopped me because of the difficulty in that operation.
Then I considered hollow-grinding a knife and flattening the last ?? to 3/8? of the edge with a blended grind. That would give me a chance to make a plate that would give complete contact (or more complete) of the edge and cool it faster and more evenly. But again the difficulty in creating a plate for each blade would be almost cost prohibitive. Do you think the idea is worth trying?
One last part of these questions. What about the idea of clamping the edge of a blade that is at the desired hardness (after tempering) in the aforementioned brass plates and then gradually heating the spine and back to a higher temperature while watching that temp with a infrared heat sensing device. The cutting edge would stay cool as the heat is drawn away into the heatsink created by the clamps. The idea is to develop a knife with a very hard edge (not too hard) with a very strong spine and back.

Riley White
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Old 03-03-2005, 11:23 AM
Jerry Hossom Jerry Hossom is offline
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Paul Bos heat treated a couple ATS-34 swords for me once. After tempering, he held the edge in a flowing stream of water (half a pipe as I recall) and ran a torch along the spine until it got red and let it cool fairly slowly. He was able to draw the spine down to about Rc50, while retaining Rc58 at the edge. (BTW, he swore he'd never do that again, so don't ask. He even gets annoyed with me when I mention it on a forum because he'll get calls from someone wanting him to do it. Pulleeease don't call him about it!! )

I'm not sure the edge quenching does much for you in high alloy steels, especially stainless. You're more likely to end up with a spine that is even more brittle than the edge because of grain growth.


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Old 03-03-2005, 11:43 AM
Riley White Riley White is offline
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Thank you for responding Jerry,
I use 1095, and 5160, almost exclusively and have drawn the backs of knives back in a pan of water before as you mentioned for the sword. Maybe Ill try the plate idea some day. After I feel more confident and have better tools to measure and control things with.
Riley White.
Oh, by the way I like the atmosphere on this forum. And it is definitely different from Blade forums.
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Old 03-03-2005, 12:11 PM
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Riley,

I don't know if you can use quench plates on those steels? I don't think plates are fast enough. 1095 is especially sensitive to speed.


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Old 03-03-2005, 12:51 PM
Riley White Riley White is offline
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I have considered that also, since it is said to a water quench steel. Right now and since I began making knives (not counting the ?Branded? knife I made when I was12) I use heated oil to quench in. It does a good job. What I think would be interesting though is drawing back with those plates. I won?t do that either. Every knife I make is unique. Mainly these ideas are the result of thinking of improvements on how steel may be tempered.
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Old 03-03-2005, 12:55 PM
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I'm sorry Riley. I didn't get the drawing back part. They would certainly keep the edge from getting too hot - as you say if the contact was correct and the process not too long.

Steve


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Old 03-03-2005, 01:02 PM
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Lets see a pic of that "Branded knife" I remember the show with Chuck Connors, but not the knife. Is that what the knife was named after?


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Old 03-03-2005, 01:58 PM
Jerry Hossom Jerry Hossom is offline
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Why not just edge quench and avoid hardening the spine to start with? That what I think most smiths do.


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Old 03-03-2005, 03:54 PM
Riley White Riley White is offline
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I have considered edge quenching. I?m not sure but it seems that the edge would not get that hard and the spine/back would end up closer to normalized than spring strong. Also, I have read that 1095 needs to be brought down fast to harden well so I put the knife in the oil (heated to 160 F) and swirl it around until it is cooled off.
The ?Branded knife? was my first knife. I think I was actually 13 or 14. Anyway it was in 1969 I think. I have lost it. Or rather my little brothers lost it when I was stationed in Germany. It looked cool to a kid though.
Yes that was the reason for the name. It was a broken sword. They broke his sword when they mistakenly charged him with cowardice and kicked him out of the army.

Last edited by Riley White; 03-03-2005 at 03:58 PM.
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Old 03-03-2005, 04:00 PM
Jerry Hossom Jerry Hossom is offline
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What I know about tools steels in NADA. 1095 might not work. A lot of folks use that successfully with other steels though.


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Old 03-05-2005, 02:50 PM
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IMO most simple solution is to make a spine and edge from different steels! Better something like san-mae.

Then - a frend who sells welding supplys told me about some clay-like stuff that can be used. It absorbs so much heat you can heat the spine with torch while edge, coated with "stuff", remainds hardened. Kind of reversal clay - hardening


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Old 03-05-2005, 04:48 PM
Johan Braadland Johan Braadland is offline
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I always quench the whole blade and draw the spine of the blade with a torch. Works pefect.


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Old 03-05-2005, 05:22 PM
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Terry Primos Terry Primos is offline
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Riley,
Edge quenching the 10xx series steels works just fine.

This photo was floating around the net for a while and was in an article on the ABS bend test in Blade Magazine a few months ago. The blade was 1084 and I edge quenched it. No draw with a torch, just normal tempering in the oven.



Let me mention that this one was specifically heat treated for the 90 degree bend. It requires a controlled shallow edge quench. The blade was about 1 3/4" wide, but only about 3/8" max was submerged in the quench tank.

I have opinions on your proposed method as well as the idea of fully hardening and drawing back the spine with a torch, but I don't choose to go into it. Since Jerry mentioned that tool steels (and in this case spring steels) aren't his area of expertise, I'd suggest that you visit Ed Caffrey's forum and discuss differential heat treating of carbon steels with him. That IS his area of expertise.

Ed has a tutorial on his website about it as well.


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