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The Newbies Arena Are you new to knife making? Here is all the help you will need. |
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#1
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Did I ruin my blade?
Just finished grinding and quenching (parks 50) 2 small drop point hunters from my new stock of 1075/1080. They both passed the file test with flying colors (FYI glad I took everyone's advice and put the 1095 into storage).
I warmed up the oven to 375F, and put the blades in. Around 20 minutes into the first cycle I put my rather expensive Taylor thermometer into the oven to more closely monitor the temperature. After the temp on the readout steadied out at 340F I raised the oven temp to 425F and only noticed a slight temp increase on the readout. A few temp increases later I realized that even though this thermometer was rated for 485F I couldn't get the readout above 365F. I lowered the temp and put a dial thermometer in with the blades. My question is: By having the blades in the oven with the temperature at aprox 450F for 7 to 10 minutes going to ruin my attempt of tempering the blades? If so, what should I do to salvage the blades? |
#2
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If they were only in there for up to 10mins, they probably didn't hit 450. What color is the steel? If you overshot your temp and you think you got the blades too hot the steel color should have darkened. (you did grind a bare spot on the steel after quenching so you can see the temper colors form on the steel right?) It would have went from a light yellow/light straw color(400ish) to a darker straw/bronzish color if you were getting in the 450 range.....which would still be usable, it would make a tougher knife but it wouldn't retain its edge as well as one done at 400. If the steel was getting near a blue color you way overshot your temp and it would need to be reheat treated.
If you mess up and overheat during a temper cycle you can just go back to the hardening stage and reheat/requench the blade then start a new temper cycle. |
#3
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I would say, probably not. It's a good idea to have your oven up to temperature before hardening the blades. I agree that the blades were not at the temperature long enough to reach 450 degrees. Even if they did over temper you did not ruin the blades. All you will need to do is to re-harden and temper again. Go ahead and test the edge of the blades and go from there.
Doug __________________ If you're not making mistakes then you're not trying hard enough |
#4
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The blades turned out fine, I put an edge on one of them and went to town on a piece of bailing wire taped to a 2x4. After testing 10 spots along the edge without seeing any deformation on the knife edge I decided to use the mallet to drive the point into the board and removed the knife by twisting it sideways. Hopefully I can get it polished and handled this weekend so I can post pics.
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Tags |
art, blade, edge, grinding, knife, post, steel |
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