so the many moons ago the kind and generious Bear sent me some metal to pound on. The metal in question was part of a coil spring it looked like. on blade A i pounded it out and forged to shape. when heat treating time came i tried a mixture of olive oil and new motor oil. when i did the file test it bit in and seemed too soft to hold a edge. this was after the entire heat treating cycle. so i cleaned it off and started over this time using water to quench. after then next heat treating cycle i noticed that there was 2 cracks in the blade from the quench. i put a handle on it and its sitting on my desk. not fit for use. blade B i forged to a flat then used grinders and the like to get it to a nice blade shape. same sequence used the oil quinch, this time heated the oil . and this time checked hardness before the heat cycle. too soft. so tried the oil 4 more times each with the same results. no dice. i had thought it possible that in my prev attempt i had left stresses in the blade and nicks that would be good places for cracks to start. this time everything was rounded and smooth. when i quenched in water again i got a crack along the area where the water was. so what do you do when water is too fast ( causes cracks) and oil too slow, (doesnt harden) any ideas? tell me what im doing wrong o' forgers of the godz..
Re: water too fast oil too slow Did you anneal it before starting the hardening treatment? If not there are some residual stresses left from forging. You might try that, then go with kerosene. You might PM either Valkman or Bear for better advice than this.
Re: water too fast oil too slow I would not use water but would stick with olive oil - I never had a problem when I used it. Heat it up some, especially in the winter. It should be the right "speed" for what you're doing.
Re: water too fast oil too slow I read in some knife making library book this 'smith liked Gojo hand cleaner, for his hardening step tranferred heat somewhere between water and straight oil, don't go on my advice (* never tried it.) justsayin..
Re: water too fast oil too slow well what im using was warm olive oil with some clean normal motor oil thrown in. it was warmed some not hot enough to burn but i would say above body temp. when i plunged the blade it ignited and such but a file would bite as if i was cutting mild steel. i think this steel dont like me none. i have used o-1 with success but this one kills me.
Re: water too fast oil too slow Are you sure you got it up to critical temp?.... non magnetic? Coil spring is probably 5160 should have hardened pretty well.... almost fool proof... Drop me a line and I'll send you some nice 1095, 1084 and 5160 barstock... even some W2 is you really wanna fool around with a water quench... expect alot of cracks.... O-1 is pretty forgiving and will let you repeat your heat treat... I can send you some to play with as well... Also see if you can lay your hands on some slow and fast quench oils... pretty cheap and readily available... well compared to Hawaii that is... I can send you some sources... good to see you forging and pounding away....
Re: water too fast oil too slow I have a rare earth magnet out of a old HDD on a stick to test with. it will very noticibly go after anything magnetic. I got it to non magnetic then put it back in the heat to make sure it stayed that way when i quench. the little o-1 i have worked with worked with no problems. I was thinking that this should be easy going also. my "shop" aka garage is a disaster right now but ill have to take some pics and share. when i did the olive oil mix a file bit in like i had not done anything. when using water well it hardened , but cracked in more than one place both times. thanks bear i will drop you a line. i just figure im doing something wrong or as i have hear it said "i didnt hold my mouth right!" happy new year all.
Re: water too fast oil too slow Got the pm... check your mail... Always willing to help out a fellow Monkey... Especially ones that like sharp things, carry heavy hammers and like playing with really hot fires
Re: water too fast oil too slow I think knives are probably the most important tool we have come up with. hammers come in close to that. hot fire, arc's, hammers sharp pointy things, along with boom makers are what covers my garage/workshop. BTW when welding at midnight, one should warn there wife/husband because it looks from a distance alot like a electrical fire.
Re: water too fast oil too slow As promised... box is in the mail.... Let me know when she lands... careful... its heavy.....
Re: water too fast oil too slow man thats like my own xmas gift! i know the post office is going to love me. kinda like when i found out you could order all the electronics data sheets in book form from Texas Instraments for free. haha. Thank you again. i plan on using it all very much.
Re: water too fast oil too slow Ok so the box landed in austin today and i got it. it weighed in at 29.25 lbs including the storage box ( that im going to keep using) I now have O-1, 1095,1080,5160,W2, leaf spring, and coil spring. so yes i would say im good for steel for a little while. also 2 hammers 2 sets of tongs and a hardie hole cutter. now to research the heat treating of thowes steels
Re: water too fast oil too slow Go here and register... its worth the time and is a treasure of all the information you need... Search for key words and you'll get all the advice you need from the pros... http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=741 Glad it landed.... let me know if you have any questions or need any help... Enjoy!
Re: water too fast oil too slow Hey folks! Nice edged weapon section y'all got here. I toyed with making my own "camp tool" (non-psycho non-paranoid way of saying what it really is...the "zombie chopper"). I bought an 18" x 1/4" x 2" slab of 154cm and made it look like a real long version of an EOD prybar...long, straight chisel edge with the short end a rounded chisel pry edge with a paracord wrap on a machete type grip. Anywho, spent plenty of hours grinding/sanding the edge...ended up giving up on the chisel edge and just did my best at two 30ºish edges. It's about 11 ounces and I've hacked some 6" cottonwood trees down with it easily so I know it can split zombie skulls...i mean make camp fire wood! My problem is...it's still in it's annealed form as it was when I bought it online! I'm torn on how to forge it. I have an idea of how I want to forge it and then bake it in the oven for several hours...the problem is...I don't know when it'll be at 1800º or whatever the temp is supposed to be for that 15 minutes. I was planning on digging a pit, putting a 1" iron pipe in it with spaced holes, then filling it with coals and then using a blow dryer to feed that air into the pipe via another longer hose a few feet away. I've heard of little tabs or stickers you can put on metal that melt at certain temps..and I've heard of magnets for certain temps (I think a few hundred degrees too low for my metal). ANyone got some good tips for helping me do this as easy as possible? I'll be using either dirty or clean motor oil in a 12" wide and very deep container/bucket since this thing is 18". Thanks! Here is my "z-bar" (or zombie bar..or zombie chopper...haven't decided on the name yet).
Re: water too fast oil too slow nice design.... 154cm is a pretty tough steel to heat treat without a heat treat oven IMHO... I'll see if I can find some info to help you ....
Re: water too fast oil too slow You're gonna have to go by color... heat treat it at night so you can better judge it in low light... here's a link to the color you're looking for... http://www.blksmth.com/heat_colors.htm Look up 154cm heat treat and you can find some good recipes....
Re: water too fast oil too slow Here's a link with some discussion... hope it helps... http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=469256&highlight=154cm+heat+treat
Re: water too fast oil too slow Cool! I think I had read somewhere where they talk about the color it should be. Never thought of doing it at night. One good thing is that I don't really care if I break this thing, and if I do it wrong and it's not going to turn out to be 6x hardened when I'm done, it'll at least be harder than it is now annealed (which is like 35 hardness?) which still does the job. THink I might punch more holes in the thing though to take out an ounce or two. I work in a high school and can sneak in. That'll allow me to punch holes and regrind the edges correctly I think. I'll try the forging at home. Thanks bear!
