heat treat o-1

[chaos_customs]

i bought two pieces of o-1 yesterday and just finished a little drop point utility knife and wanted to heat treat it but have no idea how does any one have a step by step know how to do this i have an acetaline torch that i can use any help would be appreacated
thanks vic

[Ray Rogers]

If a torch is all you have then you would have to treat it as you would any other piece of carbon steel. Heat the blade (or just the edge if you want a differential HT) until it just reaches non-magnetic and quench in warm oil. Then temper for one hour in your kitchen oven at 400 F....

[chaos_customs]

thanks ray i just have no experience with heat treating at all so i was wondering cause if i can do it my self why send it to someone else and pay them to do it

[thatschicken]

Vic,

I too am a total greenhorn with heat treating. I have made a few knives, but I've shopped out the heat treating services. But I just took an old file (that I stole at an early age actually) of my dads and annealed it in a charcoal fire and ground a knife out of it. I solicited Simonds for info on the steel but I got no reply. So I decided to take a chance. I used two hand held propapane torches so I could heat both sides of the blade at the same time. Even heat to help prevent warping. When it was non magnetic I quenched it in 10/40 motor oil (I tried this with a scrap piece first). The scrap piece had hardened fully. But the blade only got to full hardness on the front 1/2" at the edge. This was fine with me as I got a free hamon line out of the deal. But I suspect it was a water quench type steel in reality, thats why only the thinner edge hardened in the slower quench medium. My point is that these simpler steels are somewhat forgiving. As long as you don't overheat O1 it can always be annealed and rehardened. Even heat is the thing. Use two torches if you can. One on each side. For a large blade four torches might be better. Of course it would be nice if we all had time or money to build or buy a forge, but I'm not quite there yet.

Run some test pieces with scrap and use even heat and you'll probably do fine. I read here that "anyone with a full set of chromosomes can treat O1". I believe it. I did O.K. with mystery steel and a little good judgement.

I'm giving the "file" that I made into a knife (nice stag and brass, neat spanish notch) back to my father twenty five years after I obsconded it from his toolbox at the age of thirteen. His birthday is this month. I think he will like it.

Chuck

[fred winter]

my brother, get this book, heat treatment selection, and application of tool steels , by bill bryson. amazon .com has them. first with this steel, you must preheat 1200 degs. for 10 15 min. then, soak @1500 for 5min per ea. inch of smallest cross section . having your oil pre heated to 150 deg. quench your part, then place immediately in the oven for temper @ 350 deg. for 2 hours. kinda tough to do with a torch. made two chisels and a knife using the torch method ,their definately not up to speed so to speak. if your into this for real, you need to find a source for legit heat treat, or buy yourself an furnace. furnaces will pretty much eat up a thousand dollar bill. texas knifemakers supply will h.t. blades for 10 20 bucks depending, they don't do oil hard however. good luck with it fred w