This. This is the best thing I’ve found in many years of funneling content into my system. The good stuff tends to be much higher preferred -/ this is the GOOD STUFF. THIS IS QUALITY CONTENT. Thoroughly impressed with your amount of knowledge, your scientific approach, and your demeanor. This is really good content and above par for the course. Thank you.
Just so I have this straight, you have shown that the best method of quenching 1095 is water. I trust in your science here but unfortunately there is not much guidance on youtube for 1095 heat treating. And most videos show quenching 1095 in various oils. Glad I found a definitive answer in your video. Thank you much for all the testing!
This is the explanation and information that I've been looking for for 5 years. I've read multiple articles on hardening but you not only explained it and provided specific for common steels. Outstanding.
Yes! Yes! Finally a video where someone used a scientific method with charts on hardness of quenching in different media! Thank you so much! I've been looking for someone to do this for ever! I would have myself, but the $$ and not having the time has been an issue. Great work!!
Wow, a credible, unbiased catalog of knife steel with ratings, all in 1 place. Now I won't have to dig up and parse anecdotal information to make decisons!
Thank you so much for doing actual experiments to document the effectiveness of quench options. I started with canola, as many do, but am now convinced that a proper HT oven and Parks 50 are what I need to get the most out of the 1084 I generally use for knives. Sure, I've made some decent knives without proper soak times and without the proper quenching solution, but I don't want to make knives that are only "decent."
Saving this to my knife making folder! Thank you for sharing your scientific knowledge and wisdom. I've only made a couple fixed blades from already hardened steel and then tempered them, but I plan on working with 1085 and 1095 to start out from scratch. This helps a lot and will probably help me avoid a lot of costly mistakes in the quenching realm. Well done!
You are a real boon to the knife-making community. Thank you! I'm curious about different quenching procedures, like quenching in water for two seconds, then sticking it in oil in order to avoid cracking but still being able to get hardness. You know, things like that. Also quenching with agitation and quenching without agitation. Maybe even ideal edge thickness before quenching. There's also water with salt and water without salt. And then there's peanut oil. I'm curious about best quenching procedures when doing a Hamon in order to get hard hardness and contrast without cracking the blade. I mean, you could avoid cracking the blade by keeping it thick, but I it only hardens on the outside, then you have to grind the hardness away. So there's got to be an ideal thickness to avoid cracking but still having a hard edge.
these are great questions many of us would like to know...I'm willing to bet many of the answers are "trade secrets" for most skilled knife makers. once we find knowledge most people don't have or would have to experiment for years to discover is info many would take to their grave. but yeah I'm interested in a quick initial water quench technique myself
I have been doing some research on quench oils, and your video by far has been the most helpful of any information out there. Love the chart of metals to preferred quench types.
Larin, I too use olive oil...been a while since I've made a knife but as I'm getting ready to jump back in, it's great to have you out there with top quality information. Hope to visit you when your home at you're Mom and Dads one of these days...
Excellent vid, lots of great info provided. So, at approx 17:20 regarding High Hardenability Steels you say that slow oils work best BUT... .... it doesn't mean we cannot use fast quench oils or even water if you're careful So by using water in this case....what do you mean by..."If you're careful" (Not removing the blade too soon?, Not preheating too high of Temp? Not using Tap Water?) 1. Could you outline what would be a "Careful Method" for using water, with such steels. 2. With water, What would be a "Careless" method compared to a Careful one?
I think just good design, not too thin or brittle, be careful to quench it fast and evenly. Most guys use soap and salt in the water to make it vapour jacket less for a more even cooling. If you're using simple steels like 1095 and W2, use water. 5160 or 80crv2 you might get away with a vegetable oil if it's thin enough, and 52100 or O2 look to be hardenable enough to use canola oil fine enough.
I am in total agreement that canola is a sub-par quenchant for 1084 (or any fast quenchant steel), but your data seems to indicate that you could only achieve 41 hrc at .003 distance from the surface. This is what is going to set people off and make people question this test. Certainly canola isn't as good, but it can attain higher than 50 hrc on a regular basis. How could it perform so low on your test? It would be interesting to see the left side of that curve from surface hardening all the way to 0.03 depth to see if you're actually attaining the 50 or 55hrc that canola users see when doing tests.
I have no real way of responding to anecdotes about how hard someone else’s 1084 got with the same quenchant. If they overheated the steel it has higher hardenability. If the 1084 had higher Mn it will be harder. If it was thinner than 1/4” it would reach higher hardness, etc, etc. Of course if they aren’t properly checking hardness then the discussion is pointless. I laid out the process I used and this was my result. I can’t change it just because someone is unhappy about it.
@@KnifeSteelNerds Let's be clear, I'm not questioning the use of canola at all, its a poor quenchant, nor am I asking you to change your data. What people are questioning is that it seems to say that at 0.03" depth, the HRC was only 40. I'm asking what it was at the surface. Clearly you can get higher than 40hrc at the surface of 1084 with canola, is it dropping off that fast with depth is the question. If so, this is major new information. Did you gather any data at depths above 0.03 or just what you showed?
@@TyrellKnifeworks im not a knifemaker just like enjoying videos, but could it be because of the surface grinder is heating up the metal, maybe Knife Steel Nerds didnt cool it while surface grinding, again im not a knife maker just asking could it be that
@@sran9492then that would affect all the other samples.. He didn't overheat it like most forging guys.. plus even parks 50 struggled with 1095 and w2. Low temperature austenizing for 20 minutes is a lot different than forge quench at higher temp
I'm relatively new to knife making, I'm not understanding why video creator and you are using the term "overheating" why is there a limit to heating other than melting the carbon steel 1080/1084? It's my understanding that if you heat up to 1800°F on 3rd cycle you can achieve 62H with Canola oil. Wouldn't it be worth it to have a higher heat treatment temperature if that's required to get a consistent 60+ hardness throughout the blade to the center of a 1/8" blade? It's worth mentioning (different brands of Canola oil have different viscosity and properties like Gluten Free Non GMO Organic, vs cheap GV brand) @@mikafoxx2717
OUTSTANDING! You answered a lot of questions I had and some I didn't know to ask. I have been using Olive oil and it seems to be faster than canola... but I think I'm just going to bite the bullet and buy parks. Thanks again Larin!
If you going to use olive oil, mix a little salt with it and dip your bread in it, it's good, 😃. Ukrainian friend introduced me to it. I was curious how soaps would work??? Made of whatever oil, then lye or potassium hydroxide if made from burned wood. Breaking the surface tension of the water. As this fellow said, he's a metallurgist, not a chemist or such. Which these industrial oils, if some were converted to soap, maybe it could have benefit. 😃, which you have the train of thought to find out. There's books on thermal dynamics and heat transfer. Just mentioning as one day you might stumble across something.
I would love to see what would happen if you floated a gallon of quenching oil on top of water so that when you went to quench you could insert the steel into the oil only part for the first couple of seconds and then push down further to get to the water if it would help achieve a higher hardness as well as maybe prevent some of the issues from the extremely fast quenching of water.
As someone who is just starting hobby knife making I am sadened to know this about canola. But man is this an extremely informative and well put togther vedeo! Thank you
Absolutely wonderful information as always thank you for all you done for all of us knife makers just starting out your book and videos are absolutely gold in my opinion.
Fantastic video and fantastic work and testing performed! Thank you! Right now I am new to the hobby and have only used 5160 and vegetable oil. I'll be moving to parks 50 soon because I want to use other steels also.
Hello Dr. Thomas. A lot of beginners (myself included) are using 01 as a starting steel as recommended by many of the pros giving advice to beginners (for stock removal knives). Canola performed well in one category according to your testing....O1. 🙂 A good beginner oil to go along with a good beginner steel, then switch to Parks 50 as you gain experience and move on to more advanced steels. Thanks for the huge amount of time that you obviously put into this testing. It's great to have some actual data to help choose the quenching method and medium. I bought your first book when it first came out and have read a good portion of it. It's a fantastic reference guide for any knife maker that wants to get a little more serious about making knives. I'm still in the "have fun" stage. 🙂 Took me a while to figure out you had a RUclips channel, but I'm a subscriber now. Cheers from Canada, Eh?
My father was a metallurgist and worked for us steel. Unfortunately, he never talked about his work or his discipline. So I know nothing about this. But I am very interested in axe and knife making procedures and learned a lot from this video. Thanks.
@@KnifeSteelNerds he started working for Tennessee Coal & Iron in Birmingham Alabama about 1940. When us steel bought this, he was sent to Pittsburg for 1 year. That was about 1950. Then he came back to Birmingham and worked in the tin mill quality control about 25 years. I don’t know his position but he was in management and had to live in the mill when labor went on strike. Funny - I have become a strong labor supporter.
Hello; Excellent video. Every knifemaker should at least have your book; I bought it twice (one for on my bookshelf, the other for in the workshop). I mostly use 1.2442 (my favorite steel), 1.2695, niolox and vanax superclean. You can probably tell I'm European and mostly make kitchen knives :D
Here in Brazil, most of the knifmakers use diesel as quench oil, I use as well and have very good results. But I don't have this data about the diesel like you did in the video, he would be great to see the diesel in some of your tests. thank you a lot for share all this knowledge.
440C quenched in hot 130 F AAA works very good wrapped in its stainless foil wrap. I use AAA for everything except old Nicholson files from garage sales. Those I use 180 F water and push-pull it up and down, do not wave sideways EVER when quenching anything. Unless of course you want a curve in your blade.
In general which is the best oil to get for doing a variety of steel.. I think you should try some of the old quenching methods such as olive oil animal fat coconut oil and a mixture of all of them and maybe even some used vegetable oil from a fryer
I am quite confused on one part of your video. Namely, the hardness scale chart about 12 minutes in regarding 1084 quenching in canola oil and only getting 41 and lower on the scale. I, an admittedly amateur, am regularly using canola on 1084 and getting somewhere between 60-65 hrc according to my Tsubosan hardness files then tempering down to 55-61 depending on knife purpose. What am I missing in your data set?
Perhaps you've been hearing too hot prior to quenching. Over-austenitizing causes increased hardenability, though poor strength due to grain growth and/or excess carbon in solution.
Superb video 👌🏻 Thank you for taking the time to do the leg work and share your results - invaluable to a maker such as myself. Perhaps put a drop of any oil on your evenheat door latch 😂
Based on your articles and the video I've now got Parks 50. I would loved to see a brine solution tested as well. I've read some knowledgeable bladesmiths say brine is more controlled that plain water. Perhaps that's the "hard water" you mention? Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.
Brine is a bit different than hard water. Brine is supposed to help prevent vapor jacket formation for a more even quench. From the perspective of how fast it is brine we might not learn much as I would expect everything to be full hardness just like the plain water. But for making knives if you try it out you will find if you are having issues with warps and cracks.
Did you know that canola has a shelf life so to speak? After being used so many times it breaks down and changes how it quenches. Also you're right on oil temps, canola for 01 steel needs to be 125-130 to work the best, but you might be better off with peanut oil rather than canola, it seems to quench faster.
Question (or clarification) The "A" in A2 tool steel indicates Air hardening. The "W" in W2 tool steel indicates water quench, the "O" in O2 tool steel indicates oil quench. What does the "D" in D2 tool steel indicate?
@@KnifeSteelNerds Thank you Sir. BTW... I have a TJ Schwarz Overland fixed blade being made in your CPM Magnacut and wanted to thank you for all of your metallurgical endeavors.
Do you plan to do any tests of "modified oils" such a cutting AAA with kerosene to speed it up to a fast oil or "super quench" brine etc? Would be great to see some of these things "Mythbusted" thanks for the hard work 👍
I'm a retired bio/engineer, and you'll have to get an engineering degree 1st. Be sure and research the field you want to go into, the maker of this video works for a steel company doing car skins, this is his hobby lol. He engineered the new stainless cutlery steel CPM Magnacut. Look it up, I believe there are several test videos of it on YT.
I have heat-treated thousands of blades that are oil Hardening,most 1/16 th material. A thought which I intend to try is to have 2 quench tanks ,1to emerse for a couple of seconds and the other to cool to handling Temp, I'm curious.
Great video. Really enjoyed watching it and I learned something from it. I do have a question that I hope you'll be able to answer though. I just completed a knife in 1095 and quenched it in a mixture of canola and peanut oil. I got a hard blade with that mixture. The blade is approximately 3/16" thick and even post temper it's extremely difficult to file, and I have good Nicholson files. So my question is, did I just get lucky, or is there some other reason my blade was able to harden with the oil I used? Regardless, after watching this I plan to get some Parks 50 as soon as I'm able to.
My understanding of this is that Dr. Thomas is not saying that canola oil can't or won't harden your knife, but that canola oil limits your ability to get maximum performance out of your steel. Canola works up to a point, but you're not getting all of the hardness that you could get if you used a more appropriate oil.
@@ShawnsWorkshopOr water, for that matter. Just need to temper the harder one softer to be equivalent. The one that quenched harder and then got softened is usually a lot tougher.
DUDE! YER FREEKIN AWESOME! Thanks for all you rwork but let me ask a question.....thanks. I see many smiths full temper a knife then toss it in an oven at 400 for 2 hours. WHAT DOES THAT DO TO THE STEEL/ TEMPER???????? Thank you
Thank you, Larrin. You’re knowledge is incredible and your website is invaluable. I saw your interview at one of the recent blade shows talking about Magnacut. Congratulations! I’ve only been making knives for a year or so and it’s going really well. I hope to get my hands on some Magnacut one day, lol. I would be very interested in you doing hardening tests on some stainless steels. I’m very fond of AEB-L. I usually plate quench and temper around 365 after a LN2 soak, but I’m not sure if that’s the best way. Any advice on that would be greatly appreciated. I’ll sub on patreon and reach out there. Thank you again!
Cool ! Could you be motivated to test various common light industrial oils ? 0W motor, ATF, Diesel fuel, iso 10 hydraulic fluid, transformer oil (might be candidate ...), EDM fluid etc. I think that would be an ENORMOUS gain of information. The quench oils gotta be blended from common feedstocks and esspecially transformer and EDM fluids have the same requirements in terms of removing heat fast without breaking down or bubbling, foaming too much....
What's your opinion on regular Mineral Oil? Not as cheap as Canola but not as pricey as Parks. Since you made this video Parks 50 is over 200 bucks + shipping from Dubois. Maybe this can be a video suggestion: "Good quench oil alternatives - NOT CANOLA"
Water. Salty water and with soap if you want more consistency. If you're using O2 or an oil hardening steel you can get away with canola or such. Simple steels like W2, 1095, etc are water hardening.. use water.
Hello again Dr Thomas. I caught your recent interview with Blade HQ (Blade Show) and enjoyed what was discussed. Relating to my first question about D2 relating to O2, and A2. Does the "2" in the three steel types derive the same value in all three?
The “2” just means it is the second steel in the group. So the second oil hardening steel (O2), the second die steel (D2), etc. But the order doesn’t mean anything.
Could you elaborate slightly on what causes micro cracks? I know normalizing around 1550 (for 1095) gets carbon in solution and around 10 min is what you recommend in your book for a hold time if you’re trying to do it in a forge. What temp/ hold time would create conditions for “too much carbon in solution” and elevate chances of forming micro cracks?
Microcracks happen sometimes with very high carbon martensite called plate martensite. The micro racks can be “repaired” but the main thing is avoiding the plate martensite. It’s not a concern during normalizing since you aren’t quenching to martensite at that point. It’s all about how hot you austenitize before quenching. If you are heat treating in a forge I would probably recommend you avoid 1095 and instead use something like 8670 or 80CrV2 since they are lower carbon and not really in danger of having significant plate martensite.
@@KnifeSteelNerds thank you so much, I understand now. I greatly appreciate all the work you’ve done. So many of the questions you answer in your book were impossible to get clear answers for in the past. So much of blade smithing is muddled by folk practice and hearsay.
Can’t you break up the vapor barrier with some flow in the liquid? Obviously not the point of testing how good an oil is but maybe some oils that break up the vapor barrier with movement would be something to test for.
Agitation breaks up the vapor blanket but does not prevent vapor from forming. I agitated the part being quenched by moving the steel up and down rapidly. This is the most common technique used by knifemakers.
@@KnifeSteelNerds I see, most of the quenching I have seen is in regards to swords. Many are in tall cylindrical containers so they don’t have the dexterity or space to move. But with knives it should be easier just to move it around manually. Flowing liquid would probably only be necessary for large scale production if you had a container, big enough to quench multiple blades at once. Thanks for the timely response.
I watched a video by Black Beard Projects called "Stainless Steel Heat Treatment: Oil vs. Plate Quench" and in that video he showed a reduced hardness resulted from oil quenching an air quench stainless steel (and warping). I can understand the warping, but why did cooling the knife faster cause it to be SOFTER than the air cooled sample?
Oil quenching doesn’t lead to lower hardness. It would have to be from some other factor like decarb or scale that wasn’t removed, testing hardness on a non-flat section (ie a warp), or just variation in heat treating and hardness testing.
I quench my chromoly chisels thoroughly in mineral oil, so mineral oil is good enough for my needs. I use water for hardening chisels of different alloys, but differentially.
This. This is the best thing I’ve found in many years of funneling content into my system. The good stuff tends to be much higher preferred -/ this is the GOOD STUFF. THIS IS QUALITY CONTENT. Thoroughly impressed with your amount of knowledge, your scientific approach, and your demeanor. This is really good content and above par for the course. Thank you.
Greetings from Brazil. First in the country to buy your book.
Excellent, you delivered the cold hard Quenching Facts in a highly informative way, I learned and you got another SUB.
Just so I have this straight, you have shown that the best method of quenching 1095 is water. I trust in your science here but unfortunately there is not much guidance on youtube for 1095 heat treating. And most videos show quenching 1095 in various oils. Glad I found a definitive answer in your video. Thank you much for all the testing!
That's nice to know, and cheaper than chips.
This is the explanation and information that I've been looking for for 5 years. I've read multiple articles on hardening but you not only explained it and provided specific for common steels. Outstanding.
Thank you! The only one explaining this things using science and experimentation... Not just "ive been doing it like this all my life " thanks
Thanks Larrin for your time and for sharing.
Regards
Davy Thomas
Yes! Yes! Finally a video where someone used a scientific method with charts on hardness of quenching in different media! Thank you so much! I've been looking for someone to do this for ever! I would have myself, but the $$ and not having the time has been an issue. Great work!!
Love that this community has someone like you… as a lover of the scientific model I really appreciate the work you do👍
These videos of yours are a pure gold. Thank you.
Wow, a credible, unbiased catalog of knife steel with ratings, all in 1 place. Now I won't have to dig up and parse anecdotal information to make decisons!
Thank you so much for your contribution to the community! 😊
Thank you so much for doing actual experiments to document the effectiveness of quench options. I started with canola, as many do, but am now convinced that a proper HT oven and Parks 50 are what I need to get the most out of the 1084 I generally use for knives. Sure, I've made some decent knives without proper soak times and without the proper quenching solution, but I don't want to make knives that are only "decent."
Hank you for putting this together. Every knife maker can benefit from your studies
Saving this to my knife making folder! Thank you for sharing your scientific knowledge and wisdom. I've only made a couple fixed blades from already hardened steel and then tempered them, but I plan on working with 1085 and 1095 to start out from scratch. This helps a lot and will probably help me avoid a lot of costly mistakes in the quenching realm. Well done!
You are a real boon to the knife-making community. Thank you! I'm curious about different quenching procedures, like quenching in water for two seconds, then sticking it in oil in order to avoid cracking but still being able to get hardness. You know, things like that. Also quenching with agitation and quenching without agitation. Maybe even ideal edge thickness before quenching. There's also water with salt and water without salt. And then there's peanut oil. I'm curious about best quenching procedures when doing a Hamon in order to get hard hardness and contrast without cracking the blade. I mean, you could avoid cracking the blade by keeping it thick, but I it only hardens on the outside, then you have to grind the hardness away. So there's got to be an ideal thickness to avoid cracking but still having a hard edge.
these are great questions many of us would like to know...I'm willing to bet many of the answers are
"trade secrets" for most skilled knife makers.
once we find knowledge most people don't have or would have to experiment for years to discover is info many would take to their grave.
but yeah I'm interested in a quick initial water quench technique myself
Well, get to work and let us know what you find!
I hope you can find the time to make more RUclips videos and I love the stuff your doing for the knife world
I have been doing some research on quench oils, and your video by far has been the most helpful of any information out there. Love the chart of metals to preferred quench types.
Larin, I too use olive oil...been a while since I've made a knife but as I'm getting ready to jump back in, it's great to have you out there with top quality information. Hope to visit you when your home at you're Mom and Dads one of these days...
Excellent vid, lots of great info provided.
So, at approx 17:20 regarding High Hardenability Steels you say that slow oils work best BUT...
.... it doesn't mean we cannot use fast quench oils or even water if you're careful
So by using water in this case....what do you mean by..."If you're careful"
(Not removing the blade too soon?, Not preheating too high of Temp? Not using Tap Water?)
1. Could you outline what would be a "Careful Method" for using water, with such steels.
2. With water, What would be a "Careless" method compared to a Careful one?
I think just good design, not too thin or brittle, be careful to quench it fast and evenly. Most guys use soap and salt in the water to make it vapour jacket less for a more even cooling. If you're using simple steels like 1095 and W2, use water. 5160 or 80crv2 you might get away with a vegetable oil if it's thin enough, and 52100 or O2 look to be hardenable enough to use canola oil fine enough.
I am in total agreement that canola is a sub-par quenchant for 1084 (or any fast quenchant steel), but your data seems to indicate that you could only achieve 41 hrc at .003 distance from the surface. This is what is going to set people off and make people question this test. Certainly canola isn't as good, but it can attain higher than 50 hrc on a regular basis. How could it perform so low on your test? It would be interesting to see the left side of that curve from surface hardening all the way to 0.03 depth to see if you're actually attaining the 50 or 55hrc that canola users see when doing tests.
I have no real way of responding to anecdotes about how hard someone else’s 1084 got with the same quenchant. If they overheated the steel it has higher hardenability. If the 1084 had higher Mn it will be harder. If it was thinner than 1/4” it would reach higher hardness, etc, etc. Of course if they aren’t properly checking hardness then the discussion is pointless. I laid out the process I used and this was my result. I can’t change it just because someone is unhappy about it.
@@KnifeSteelNerds Let's be clear, I'm not questioning the use of canola at all, its a poor quenchant, nor am I asking you to change your data. What people are questioning is that it seems to say that at 0.03" depth, the HRC was only 40. I'm asking what it was at the surface. Clearly you can get higher than 40hrc at the surface of 1084 with canola, is it dropping off that fast with depth is the question. If so, this is major new information. Did you gather any data at depths above 0.03 or just what you showed?
@@TyrellKnifeworks im not a knifemaker just like enjoying videos, but could it be because of the surface grinder is heating up the metal, maybe Knife Steel Nerds didnt cool it while surface grinding, again im not a knife maker just asking could it be that
@@sran9492then that would affect all the other samples..
He didn't overheat it like most forging guys.. plus even parks 50 struggled with 1095 and w2. Low temperature austenizing for 20 minutes is a lot different than forge quench at higher temp
I'm relatively new to knife making, I'm not understanding why video creator and you are using the term "overheating" why is there a limit to heating other than melting the carbon steel 1080/1084?
It's my understanding that if you heat up to 1800°F on 3rd cycle you can achieve 62H with Canola oil. Wouldn't it be worth it to have a higher heat treatment temperature if that's required to get a consistent 60+ hardness throughout the blade to the center of a 1/8" blade?
It's worth mentioning (different brands of Canola oil have different viscosity and properties like Gluten Free Non GMO Organic, vs cheap GV brand)
@@mikafoxx2717
You’re a legend!! Thank you so much for all this info! Bought your book as a result!
OUTSTANDING! You answered a lot of questions I had and some I didn't know to ask. I have been using Olive oil and it seems to be faster than canola... but I think I'm just going to bite the bullet and buy parks. Thanks again Larin!
If you going to use olive oil, mix a little salt with it and dip your bread in it, it's good, 😃. Ukrainian friend introduced me to it.
I was curious how soaps would work??? Made of whatever oil, then lye or potassium hydroxide if made from burned wood. Breaking the surface tension of the water. As this fellow said, he's a metallurgist, not a chemist or such.
Which these industrial oils, if some were converted to soap, maybe it could have benefit. 😃, which you have the train of thought to find out. There's books on thermal dynamics and heat transfer. Just mentioning as one day you might stumble across something.
Although I feel way out of my league watching this, I thoroughly enjoy scientific results. Thank you for all you do for the community Dr. Thomas.
I would love to see what would happen if you floated a gallon of quenching oil on top of water so that when you went to quench you could insert the steel into the oil only part for the first couple of seconds and then push down further to get to the water if it would help achieve a higher hardness as well as maybe prevent some of the issues from the extremely fast quenching of water.
I used to do that, mainly because there was a hole in the roof of my old shed and my quench bucket would get water in it when it rained.
Read the book and lots of the articles, very much looking forward to watching the videos. Lots of learning so far and more to come no doubt 😊
Loved every second!!! Please consider making this a weakly or monthly vid! 🙏
As someone who is just starting hobby knife making I am sadened to know this about canola. But man is this an extremely informative and well put togther vedeo! Thank you
You have made something which was really needed and precious. God bless you.
Absolutely wonderful information as always thank you for all you done for all of us knife makers just starting out your book and videos are absolutely gold in my opinion.
Very useful info! Time to reevaluate my quenchant!
You answered a question that was asked so many times! I guess quenching oil demand will go up now. 😁 Thanks for this study! 👏
The results on O1 @12:31 suprised me, interesting to see that canola works well on that specific steel
Thanks for the awesome video! Ironically a group of us were talking about this very subject. Great to get some clarification!
Fantastic video mate. I’m so glad people like you exist.
I love what you do. I am learning a LOT. Thank you
Fantastic video and fantastic work and testing performed! Thank you! Right now I am new to the hobby and have only used 5160 and vegetable oil. I'll be moving to parks 50 soon because I want to use other steels also.
Hello Dr. Thomas. A lot of beginners (myself included) are using 01 as a starting steel as recommended by many of the pros giving advice to beginners (for stock removal knives). Canola performed well in one category according to your testing....O1. 🙂 A good beginner oil to go along with a good beginner steel, then switch to Parks 50 as you gain experience and move on to more advanced steels. Thanks for the huge amount of time that you obviously put into this testing. It's great to have some actual data to help choose the quenching method and medium. I bought your first book when it first came out and have read a good portion of it. It's a fantastic reference guide for any knife maker that wants to get a little more serious about making knives. I'm still in the "have fun" stage. 🙂 Took me a while to figure out you had a RUclips channel, but I'm a subscriber now. Cheers from Canada, Eh?
I was so glad and surprised to see you on this platform! Thanks a lot for your work!❤️🖤
My father was a metallurgist and worked for us steel. Unfortunately, he never talked about his work or his discipline. So I know nothing about this. But I am very interested in axe and knife making procedures and learned a lot from this video. Thanks.
What was his position and in what location did he work?
@@KnifeSteelNerds he started working for Tennessee Coal & Iron in Birmingham Alabama about 1940. When us steel bought this, he was sent to Pittsburg for 1 year. That was about 1950. Then he came back to Birmingham and worked in the tin mill quality control about 25 years. I don’t know his position but he was in management and had to live in the mill when labor went on strike. Funny - I have become a strong labor supporter.
Very useful stuff, as always. Thanks for all the work you do!
Stunning data presentation. Thank you!
Hello; Excellent video. Every knifemaker should at least have your book; I bought it twice (one for on my bookshelf, the other for in the workshop). I mostly use 1.2442 (my favorite steel), 1.2695, niolox and vanax superclean. You can probably tell I'm European and mostly make kitchen knives :D
Great vid and that book is amazing, everyone who makes knives should consider giving it a read, IMO.
Pure gold! Thanks for making your way to the Tube :)
I’m so glad you got video!! Love it!!
where dos peanut oil fall on the nickel ball test chart?
Here in Brazil, most of the knifmakers use diesel as quench oil, I use as well and have very good results. But I don't have this data about the diesel like you did in the video, he would be great to see the diesel in some of your tests. thank you a lot for share all this knowledge.
Thank you! I was just googling this last night! Happy to hear from the expert.👍
Nice job. A cool follow-up video would be interesting to see how some air quenching steels behave in oil versus plates versus still air.
440C quenched in hot 130 F AAA works very good wrapped in its stainless foil wrap. I use AAA for everything except old Nicholson files from garage sales. Those I use 180 F water and push-pull it up and down, do not wave sideways EVER when quenching anything. Unless of course you want a curve in your blade.
In general which is the best oil to get for doing a variety of steel.. I think you should try some of the old quenching methods such as olive oil animal fat coconut oil and a mixture of all of them and maybe even some used vegetable oil from a fryer
I am quite confused on one part of your video. Namely, the hardness scale chart about 12 minutes in regarding 1084 quenching in canola oil and only getting 41 and lower on the scale. I, an admittedly amateur, am regularly using canola on 1084 and getting somewhere between 60-65 hrc according to my Tsubosan hardness files then tempering down to 55-61 depending on knife purpose. What am I missing in your data set?
Are you quenching 1/4” stock without bevels?
@@KnifeSteelNerdsno but 3/16" knife blanks. Is there that much difference in those? Wow!
Perhaps you've been hearing too hot prior to quenching. Over-austenitizing causes increased hardenability, though poor strength due to grain growth and/or excess carbon in solution.
I learned alot of new stuff form this video, thank you for all the effort!
Excellent video
Larrin, Thank You!
Thank you for this. Mental retention is little because of hard tempering of brain, but it's in memory for recollection later, sort of like a primer.
Mind. Blown. Phenomenal video sir. Thank you much.
Thoroughly enjoyed you covered all steels I am likely to use thank you
Superb video 👌🏻 Thank you for taking the time to do the leg work and share your results - invaluable to a maker such as myself. Perhaps put a drop of any oil on your evenheat door latch 😂
Love it. Hope you put out more
Based on your articles and the video I've now got Parks 50. I would loved to see a brine solution tested as well. I've read some knowledgeable bladesmiths say brine is more controlled that plain water. Perhaps that's the "hard water" you mention? Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.
Brine is a bit different than hard water. Brine is supposed to help prevent vapor jacket formation for a more even quench. From the perspective of how fast it is brine we might not learn much as I would expect everything to be full hardness just like the plain water. But for making knives if you try it out you will find if you are having issues with warps and cracks.
I tested brine against water, and brine was victorious.
Great video, thanks for doing this Larrin!
Thank you for sharing this information, and I look forward to reading your book!
Man this was great. Unfortunately I've been doing it all wrong apparently lol. Thank you for doing this video! 👊
What about heating the oils to different tempretures?
I found that at least with canola the oil temp has a very big impact
Did you know that canola has a shelf life so to speak? After being used so many times it breaks down and changes how it quenches. Also you're right on oil temps, canola for 01 steel needs to be 125-130 to work the best, but you might be better off with peanut oil rather than canola, it seems to quench faster.
Thanks, man. You are the best! I have to try to fiddle with sunflower oil. Because it's the most common around here
Question (or clarification) The "A" in A2 tool steel indicates Air hardening. The "W" in W2 tool steel indicates water quench, the "O" in O2 tool steel indicates oil quench. What does the "D" in D2 tool steel indicate?
The D is for “die steels” which refers to their typical application not quench speed.
@@KnifeSteelNerds
Thank you Sir. BTW... I have a TJ Schwarz Overland fixed blade being made in your CPM Magnacut and wanted to thank you for all of your metallurgical endeavors.
You probably just saved my first 1095 knife. I was going to use motor oil.
Do you plan to do any tests of "modified oils" such a cutting AAA with kerosene to speed it up to a fast oil or "super quench" brine etc? Would be great to see some of these things "Mythbusted" thanks for the hard work 👍
Breaking canola hearts!
But.. it's supposed to be heart healthy!
Maybe not so for bladesmiths.
Would love to see a similar video that includes salt bath quenching.......
This type of stuff is why I’m going to school to get a degree in metallurgy!
I'm a retired bio/engineer, and you'll have to get an engineering degree 1st. Be sure and research the field you want to go into, the maker of this video works for a steel company doing car skins, this is his hobby lol. He engineered the new stainless cutlery steel CPM Magnacut. Look it up, I believe there are several test videos of it on YT.
I have heat-treated thousands of blades that are oil Hardening,most 1/16 th material. A thought which I intend to try is to have 2 quench tanks ,1to emerse for a couple of seconds and the other to cool to handling Temp, I'm curious.
Thank you so much for this great video
Wow, so for our beginner statting out with basic carbon steel, humble water is better than you'd expect.
Is peanut oil pretty much the same as canola?
I'm gonna use peanut oil
I've heard that many of the old timers use transmission fluid
That would be correct. And Marvel Mystery Oil.
@@therory6888 just saw Kyle Royer using transmission fluid. I might have to give it a go
Great research, thanks!
Great video. Really enjoyed watching it and I learned something from it. I do have a question that I hope you'll be able to answer though. I just completed a knife in 1095 and quenched it in a mixture of canola and peanut oil. I got a hard blade with that mixture. The blade is approximately 3/16" thick and even post temper it's extremely difficult to file, and I have good Nicholson files. So my question is, did I just get lucky, or is there some other reason my blade was able to harden with the oil I used? Regardless, after watching this I plan to get some Parks 50 as soon as I'm able to.
My understanding of this is that Dr. Thomas is not saying that canola oil can't or won't harden your knife, but that canola oil limits your ability to get maximum performance out of your steel. Canola works up to a point, but you're not getting all of the hardness that you could get if you used a more appropriate oil.
@@ShawnsWorkshopOr water, for that matter. Just need to temper the harder one softer to be equivalent. The one that quenched harder and then got softened is usually a lot tougher.
Very useful information. Thank you.
DUDE! YER FREEKIN AWESOME! Thanks for all you rwork but let me ask a question.....thanks.
I see many smiths full temper a knife then toss it in an oven at 400 for 2 hours. WHAT DOES THAT DO TO THE STEEL/ TEMPER???????? Thank you
Thank you, Larrin. You’re knowledge is incredible and your website is invaluable. I saw your interview at one of the recent blade shows talking about Magnacut. Congratulations! I’ve only been making knives for a year or so and it’s going really well. I hope to get my hands on some Magnacut one day, lol. I would be very interested in you doing hardening tests on some stainless steels. I’m very fond of AEB-L. I usually plate quench and temper around 365 after a LN2 soak, but I’m not sure if that’s the best way. Any advice on that would be greatly appreciated. I’ll sub on patreon and reach out there. Thank you again!
Sorry my english isnt very good, when you said beyond 1/8 inch water hardening did you mean by that thicker or thinner metal 18:00, thanks in advance
Is olive oil significantly different than canola oil for hardening?
Hey do any of these oils ever expire or become less effective with time or use?
Sent here by Mr Shabazz.
How tf do y'all only have 5K subscribers?
GOOD JOB, THANKS
Thank you so much!
Hello. Which one do you recommend for 80Crv2? I don't know English. I use google translation. I will be glad if you answer
Cool ! Could you be motivated to test various common light industrial oils ? 0W motor, ATF, Diesel fuel, iso 10 hydraulic fluid, transformer oil (might be candidate ...), EDM fluid etc. I think that would be an ENORMOUS gain of information. The quench oils gotta be blended from common feedstocks and esspecially transformer and EDM fluids have the same requirements in terms of removing heat fast without breaking down or bubbling, foaming too much....
What's your opinion on regular Mineral Oil? Not as cheap as Canola but not as pricey as Parks. Since you made this video Parks 50 is over 200 bucks + shipping from Dubois. Maybe this can be a video suggestion: "Good quench oil alternatives - NOT CANOLA"
Water. Salty water and with soap if you want more consistency. If you're using O2 or an oil hardening steel you can get away with canola or such. Simple steels like W2, 1095, etc are water hardening.. use water.
Have you passed this data to ASME, Thant you for all your hard work.
Hello again Dr Thomas. I caught your recent interview with Blade HQ (Blade Show) and enjoyed what was discussed. Relating to my first question about D2 relating to O2, and A2. Does the "2" in the three steel types derive the same value in all three?
The “2” just means it is the second steel in the group. So the second oil hardening steel (O2), the second die steel (D2), etc. But the order doesn’t mean anything.
Thank you Sir.
Could you elaborate slightly on what causes micro cracks? I know normalizing around 1550 (for 1095) gets carbon in solution and around 10 min is what you recommend in your book for a hold time if you’re trying to do it in a forge. What temp/ hold time would create conditions for “too much carbon in solution” and elevate chances of forming micro cracks?
Microcracks happen sometimes with very high carbon martensite called plate martensite. The micro racks can be “repaired” but the main thing is avoiding the plate martensite. It’s not a concern during normalizing since you aren’t quenching to martensite at that point. It’s all about how hot you austenitize before quenching. If you are heat treating in a forge I would probably recommend you avoid 1095 and instead use something like 8670 or 80CrV2 since they are lower carbon and not really in danger of having significant plate martensite.
@@KnifeSteelNerds thank you so much, I understand now. I greatly appreciate all the work you’ve done. So many of the questions you answer in your book were impossible to get clear answers for in the past. So much of blade smithing is muddled by folk practice and hearsay.
Can’t you break up the vapor barrier with some flow in the liquid? Obviously not the point of testing how good an oil is but maybe some oils that break up the vapor barrier with movement would be something to test for.
Agitation breaks up the vapor blanket but does not prevent vapor from forming. I agitated the part being quenched by moving the steel up and down rapidly. This is the most common technique used by knifemakers.
@@KnifeSteelNerds I see, most of the quenching I have seen is in regards to swords. Many are in tall cylindrical containers so they don’t have the dexterity or space to move. But with knives it should be easier just to move it around manually. Flowing liquid would probably only be necessary for large scale production if you had a container, big enough to quench multiple blades at once. Thanks for the timely response.
I watched a video by Black Beard Projects called "Stainless Steel Heat Treatment: Oil vs. Plate Quench" and in that video he showed a reduced hardness resulted from oil quenching an air quench stainless steel (and warping). I can understand the warping, but why did cooling the knife faster cause it to be SOFTER than the air cooled sample?
Oil quenching doesn’t lead to lower hardness. It would have to be from some other factor like decarb or scale that wasn’t removed, testing hardness on a non-flat section (ie a warp), or just variation in heat treating and hardness testing.
I quench my chromoly chisels thoroughly in mineral oil, so mineral oil is good enough for my needs. I use water for hardening chisels of different alloys, but differentially.
Which oil is fast oil? Can you tell me what type is Engine oil like used in electric transformal?