My first time quenching 1095, and turned out perfect following your instructions. Thanks for the great vid man...!!! (PS: I used peanut oil at 100 deg.)
Seen a lot online and one where you have to wrap the blade. I was getting worried that I was going to send my blade out to harden it. This makes more sense for sure. Thanks for sharing.
First off great video! Lots of critics here, I found not putting bevels in really helps and yes the edge is still just as hard as the rest of the knife as I have access to a hardness tester. I bought a used kiln and one of these days I'll get the controllers for it and have something more accurate for tempering. Thanks again for the info.
Just a correction. If you heat to about 1475 and stay below 1500, you won't get any appreciable grain growth so you can absolutely bevel before HT. Temper at 400 for 2 hours twice and you'll get a 61HRC easily. Of course, this depends on if the metal was properly thermal treated by the manufacturer beforehand.
Sorry for the late reply! I will most likely be making a follow up video on this to clarify details on what I was doing. The stock thickness I was using was on the thin side, and need to add in that thicker stock should have rough bevels ground in. Overall, I have a better direction for a follow up. Thanks for the comment, and if you can think of anything I should add in there, let me know!
I just wanted to say I use 1095 on all of my small knives and I've been having good results with water quenching, and mine seem to come up 60+ hardness, do you think the oil quench on a 1095 gives it slightly less hardness than a water quench? It's high risk high reward maybe, but I haven't had a blade crack on me so far, people warned me water cracks 1095, but mine seem fine.
@@dimmacommunication Yeah, I put clay over the spine side and flats of the knife, and leave a large portion of the cutting edge bare, where I want it to be hard. 1-2 blades out of every 10 will crack and warp though.
Quenching plain carbon steel in oil is very forgiving and easy, i don't really get why people have trouble with it. You can make a cycle before quench, getting to cherry red and then letting air cool. If you forged your blade properly, cycles aren't needed. Heat up to cherry red, not above, not below. Some describe the color as "pink". Use shadow to help you see the color better. Get everything nice and even, you don't really need soaking if your blade was forged before (it's all perlite, the carbon will dissolve extremely fast). Then, plunge the blade straight into the oil, trying to not cool one side more than the other, as was said in the video. I personally finish my blade before the quench, doing the grinds and a simple sanding, as a thinner edge will cool off more quickly in oil (but is more tricky to get to an even heat). I also like to dunk my blade in very cold water a few seconds after the oil quench, to get to below room temperature somewhat quickly. It's a kind of low quality cryo treatment, but it's only practical during winter if you have a water bucket. Then you clean off the oil, give a simple sanding, and do your temper. Do it on a kiln, or do it above the embers of the forge if you like doing it medieval style. Both techniques have pros and cons. Kiln temper is incredibly accurate and can get you a bit more steel performance trough the soaking time and cycles. Flame temper is tricky to do correctly, but allows you to do a differencial temper on your blades. You can use thick forge tongs heated red hot in the forge, and you clamp the back of your knife while you're getting the edge to straw or yellow/bronze, depending on the use. The hot tongs along with a wet rag will give you a blue back with a straw edge. A knife tempered like that will outperform a knife tempered in a kiln in terms of pure resilience, while keeping most of the hardness and steel performance for the edge. But it's a pain to do, and you can't do stainless like that.
Temper in a toaster oven just like a tempering oven, 2x2hr cycles. I would also add that critical is whenever the knife becomes non-magnetic, never higher really, because austenite is not magnetic even below the curie point. You can throw it in the freezer immediately after quenching for cryo, and it's still half as effective as liquid nitrogen if you do it immediately and your freezer is very cold. Wait even minutes and it might do very little.
@@mikafoxx2717 i personally do it the old way, with primitive tools (aka watching the temper colors above hot coals after quench in water). A short temper helps avoid martensite embrittlement, wich develops as retained austenite turns into hard martensite during the temper. A short temper doesnt allow much retained austenite to convert. But the modern way to deal with that is two long tempers, but you need a low température otherwise you'll really drop in hardness
@@ForgeDuLys Ah, interesting point about the martensite enbrittlement. didn't know that fast tempers did that differently. Would be interesting to compare side by side a double toaster oven temper versus a forge temper.
Hey sorry for the late reply! So there is a long story behind that one. The shop I was working out of was sold and I had to pack things up. I finished college up and was moving around doing seasonal work. Landed a full time gig and finally was able to buy a house. I now have a large shop space to work out of and getting things set up and getting caught back up on my skillset. I should be making some more videos soon!
What would be a good process for a chopper? Im looking to remake a popular wall hanger bowie knife with the big belly. Its a favorite of my dads and he's always wanted a good version
Sorry for the late reply! How thick are you looking to go? I find anything over 1/8 inch bevels need to be rough ground in if using canola oil. Ill probably make a follow up video on this one soon. I just bought a house and finally have a work space again after a few years of inactivity
@@buckwild6587 Thank you!! And its a bit thick for canola. Thinning it out will help a lot, but I usually don't work with stock that thick.You can try an interrupted quench by starting with water, then finishing in oil. Walter Sorrels has a few videos on it I believe, but Ill have to check in on that. 1095 is a water hardening steel above I believe 1/4. inch, but is prone to cracking thinner than that. Learned that one the hard way lol
An infrared gun isn't the best as the usual home game guns don't go up high enough, as well as there can be temperature fluctuations in the forge so that can be inaccurate in that regard. The steel is the best measure of temperature. The magnet method is the best for basic testing. if you're looking for accuracy, a heat read oven or salt bath is going to be your best bet. Salt baths can be dangerous so if you go that route, use caution.
I do very close to the same thing as you with canola 130 deg ect i do only do 380deg for hr and a half in the oven but me edge dents is that normal ? doesnt chip doesnt roll
The edge denting probably means that the knife edge didn't fully harden. How thick of stock are you using? I am probably going to make a follow up video to this for thicker stock
Hey sorry for the late reply. Life has been a bit crazy lately. I just bought a house and have been doing work on that and getting the shop space set back up and organized. For a fillet knife, I would do some things a little different. Because you want a little flexibility in the knife, I would raise the temperature of the temper to somewhere around 450f. That will reduce the edge durability, but will allow the knife to be flexible. The key is to have a thin taper. Fillet knives can be tricky
I just heat treated my first knife. Everything went well but I noticed when i looked at the video my first dip in the oil i went to agitate and i took the blade out for a fraction of the second about an inch from ricasso and the rest of the time it was completely submerged. I checked the knife with a file and it seems like its hardened. Do you think its ok?
Just edge quench 1095 in concentrated brine and then quickly dunk the whole steel in motor oil. Cheap and easy. This method also makes 4130 capable of chopping concrete.
Glad you noticed! The blade was red, however the camera didn't pick it up as the sun was shining fairly bright that day. I have a magnet on hand to check the blade before I quench. Wish I did show the color in the video though
Its a little hard to do an HRC test on bevels as they are angled, but you can get the hardened files to test for general hardness. On thicker stock (over 1/8 inch) canola has a hard time getting full hardness in the steel. I would like to do a follow up video on this soon to talk about that. That is an important detail I left out of the vid. thicker stock you'll want to put some bevels on it prior to heat treat. You'll get a large amount of the beveled area hardened and the remainder up to the spine will generally stay on the softer side. Again, generally lol
@@BearRiverKnives I actually just watch a vid on sharpness testing chisels. He said that they have the advantage of being able to test the cutting edge.
Do you use that Ryobi band saw to cut out your blanks? If so, what blade are you using on it? I bought the same saw so I didn't have to spend so much time at the belt sander doing shaping work, but I haven't found a blade that'll stay sharp through 1/8" 1095.
No the Ryobi is for wood handles. The blade spins too fast to cut steel and its too much of a hassle to put a new motor on. you will need a motor that spins really slow and needs torque. there is no real effective way to slow down the motor on the unit as its a simple AC motor. it is doable to put a new motor on it, but I decided to get a portable bandsaw from harbor freight and mount it to the wall. they are like $100 and to make a mount is super simple if its attaching to the wall. Simple Little Life has a video that can give you an idea how its done
1095 is a simple carbon steel. So not much manganese or other alloying elements that would kinda support the formation of a martensitic crystalline structure all the way through the entire blade. So without grinding the bevels beforehand and with a relatively mild quench as you do it it raises the question whether you still reach 59 HRC on the actual cutting edge after tempering and grinding the bevels. How thick is the thing at the moment you go to the heat treatment?
WUNDER8AR the blade is 3/32 before quench. I failed to mention in the video if you are doing thicker knives you should be pre grinding bevels as 1095 is a shallow hardening steel.
Thank you! Very timely for me to have found your video as I am just finishing prep for HT on my first 2 knives! I notice that you do not do any normalizing/thermo cycling prior the final heat & quench - your system works for you!!!
Well, we both do the same methods... I've had problems with chipping... I'm thinking I need to temper longer.. I also thinking I may be getting the blade a bit too hot.. I can make such a beautiful knife, but then my heat treat sucks.
The Dood yeah the heat treat is key. Have you broken open your blades to see what the grain looks like? Overheating the steel causes some large grain which will weaken the edge. How are you testing your blade?
1095 has a range of heat treatment. Going hotter than 1650*f is only going to grow grains. In a forge, its easy to overshoot that. The effective range to heat treat 1095 its recommended between 1550*F and 1650*F. The hotter you go, the more you risk cracking the blade or growing grain by overshooting the temp. If you have an electric oven, still recommend 1550*F or 1575*F as most ovens will have a range the temperature can fluctuate
Good question! It depends on how you grind the bevels. Tempering your knife is the process of softening the steel. The tempering temperatures vary per steel. after a tempering cycle, theoretically any temperature lower than the initial temper wont damage your original heat treatment. While grinding, as long as heat treatment colors dont show up on your edge while you are grinding, you are golden. Keep the blade cool and there shouldn't be an issue (though a couple blown edges might happen, but everyone experiences that every now and again)
Another thing to consider is that in order to truly temper your knife, it is supposed to be done immediately after hitting 120-150 F after your quench. So grinding a day or more later shouldn’t truly temper the blade, but I don’t really know. I think a lot of people just play it safe, and don’t over grind just because we hear it from others. But I tend to think it isn’t as big of a thing as some people suggest. Personally I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a hardened blade to nearly 400F by grinding it a bit. You’d feel that, that’s hot. Yes the surfaces on a small scale will get very hot for very short time periods, but most people take it slow and use water to cool the blade. Tempering takes an hour at least of constant heat also, which you won’t get close to by grinding. I think a real test would be to attempt to temper the edge after heat treat by grinding, and see if you can actually affect the blade by grinding.
@@CagedSUPERMAN It depends really. The thickness of the stock you choose will impact how the blade hardens. I find that anything above 1/8 inch has ha difficult time hardening with canola. However if you bevel it, the edge will harden. But leave the final edge thickness a bit on the thicker side. I wouldn't recommend sharpening the knife before quenching as the edge is too thin. It's prone to overheating, cracking, and warping the thinner you go
I'm not a blade smith but trying to learn how to heat treat a knife. I'm making a bowie style knife. 1095 spring steel. It's 18 inches long and just under 3/8 thick. I've taken smaller pieces of the 1095 and heated them to 1475 for about an hour. I quench in quenching oil and my 1095 doesn't retain the 28rc from when I measured before the heat treatment. It drops to 10 rc. If I try to heat treat another small piece as a test...is my temp correct at 1475? And for how long? If the piece is still magnetic after an hr in the oven....do I keep it in oven longer until it's non magnetic?
With 1095 come to find out, anything thicker than 1/4 inch is water quench. However, 1095 is also a shallow hardening steel which means the core wont fully harden. Id recommend grinding some bevels in to thin the edge out just a touch. be sure they are even and leave plenty of thickness. agitate in your quench medium. 1475 is the correct temperature, but if you have an oven and you are indeed holding it at that temperature, hold it no longer than 10 minutes. I dont see much of a difference soaking vs heating to quench with a forge. Are you indeed using an oven? if you are at 1475*f, the blade should be non magnetic. so recap, if you are wanting to grind the bevels in after the quench, with stock that thick, use a water or brine (salt water) and agitate in the quench. if you grind the bevels in prior in order to use oil, make sure you have plenty of oil and agitate. 1095 is a bit fussier than other steels so it might take some time. should have included that info in the video, but most folk dont make knives above 1/4 inch steel. give that a go and see if that works. if not, go to my Facebook page and there should be a call now button. feel free to give me a shout
Thanks for replying...I've tried to use our electric oven with smaller pieces of 1095 3/8 thick...it's takes about 15 minutes to reach 1475. But the small pieces never reach a red color color. After 1 hr the pieces turn a red orange color and become non magnetic then i oil quench and I only get a 28-30 rc. I took a oxy/acc torch and heated small pieces of 1095 as well a red orange color non magnetic but quenched it in water. 50 -52rc. I want this knife to cut branches like a hatchet but I need the edge to retain its sharpness. Would flame hardening with the torch be better with a water quench? At 3/8 thick the knife would be tough enough...right?
if you haven't ground in any bevels, then a water quench could work, though note that water is very aggesive, though at that thickness, water might be your best option. Id suggest adding a few pounds of salt to a 5 gallon bucket of warm water (or any quench tank that will hold enough water to cool the entire piece of steel. Also, with your oven, make sure your thermocouple is still good as they do go bad after time. also make sure your piece is vertical and not laying flat on the floor of the oven. try a decent size test piece in water just to be sure. 1095 can have micro fractures if quenched in water if its too hot so be sure to test some pieces
I have been experimenting with small pieces. A cold water quench gets me 40 to 52 rc....but it's not consitant all over the piece. Yes standing the piece up will yield a better hardness. I'm just trying the heating times now... 10 minutes at 1500F isn't long enough even thought the piece is a cherry red color it is still magnetic. Also...the rc drops from 28 to 10rc. 30 to 45 minutes at 1500 F yields me 40 to 58rc. The piece is more orange than red.
what brand and model oven are you using? soak times should not exceed 10 minutes. However, soak time starts once the steel gets to temperature. it depends on the oven you have at this point I think
used motor oil doesn't really work terribly well. Its hit or miss, depending on the oil, how used it is and the like. Also, its very bad for your health to breath in. You would have better luck sticking with canola
To be honest, its a little bit of a guessing game with a forge, but take it to non-magnetic, and a "little further" then quench. A heat treat oven would be ideal, but the forge is a cheaper option
If you have a k-type thermocouple why don't you put it in the Forge? You can hold and maintain a accurate temperature in a propane Forge with a k type like you have
the issue is the gas is subject to many different factors that will affect the burn of the fuel. I like clean burns so it gets upward to 2400*f in the forge I have. Maintaining a specific temperature via adjustable regulators is very hard and the temp will fluctuate too widely. However, I'm working on is building a PID controller that has a gas regulator that will shut the gas off once the temperature is reached, then fire it back up when it calls for more heat. That should effectively make a gas heat treatment oven. Only downside I anticipate is that its harder to slowly heat up metals that require slow heat up times that you can get with an electronic unit. Ill post a video once I get this built
I hear you there I do run my Forge with very low oxygen but I also have a big piece of angle iron to protect the knife from the flame that helps with scale too. I like your videos keep up the good work
for 1095 or W1 why not just spend the money and get 5L of fast quench oil and be done with it, it's not a big investment and you'll see HRC 65 out of the quench tank and HRC 62 out of the tempering oven? Fast quench oil is designed for 1095/W1 and W2 to get the utmost out of those steels.
Or you could spend some money on the correct oil that is designed to quench steel in and not have to bother heating it. And then for your oven, take a piece of scrap steel and put it in your oven at different temps for 2 hours each and use the color of the steel to tell you your real temps, start at 200 and go to 450 in 50 degree increments and make a chart of what setting on your oven yields the actual temp you want, at those lower temps the color changes at very specific temps and this is easy to do and free, once you’ve done it you’ll never need to use a thermometer again.
P226nut I agree with you on one point. If you have a proper quench oil like Parks 50, which is a fast 7 sec quench oil, or maybe you have another brand like McMaster Carr, or Houghton line of quenchants that are 9-10 secs all the way up to 11-16 secs (whatever depends on the steel you use) you do not need to heat your oil...lot of guys still do because the manufacturers say you can, but they do warn that heating proper industrial quench oil does lower its life span. Basically room temp is fine for these professional grades of oil because they have a specific chemical makeup. As for tempering times, heat treatment 101, read the manufacturers tech sheets, it will give you an HRC chart and a recommended temp chart for tempering (as well as heat treat temps of course) , they also include if they recommend cryogenic treatment. Don’t guess or mess around guys, if HRC60 (example only) is what you want and the manufacturer says heat at 1900F for 20 mins, oil or air cool to room temp, then temper at 400F for two cycles @ 2hrs each to achieve HRC60, well freaking do it 👍 😂
Like you said a lot of misinformation, size, shape, thickness, will not all work in your setup, home brewed oils are not exactly the same, buy oil made for quenching & get a heat-treating oven is the only wat to get a consistent good blade & forget about this crap people are doing here.
My first time quenching 1095, and turned out perfect following your instructions.
Thanks for the great vid man...!!! (PS: I used peanut oil at 100 deg.)
do you live near a Five Guys?
Seen a lot online and one where you have to wrap the blade. I was getting worried that I was going to send my blade out to harden it. This makes more sense for sure. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks very informative I use 1095 for most of my knives. Good video.
This is the most spot on steps for quenching 1095. I personally don't like to go over 420 for my tempering but your quench instructions are on point
First off great video! Lots of critics here, I found not putting bevels in really helps and yes the edge is still just as hard as the rest of the knife as I have access to a hardness tester. I bought a used kiln and one of these days I'll get the controllers for it and have something more accurate for tempering. Thanks again for the info.
Just a correction. If you heat to about 1475 and stay below 1500, you won't get any appreciable grain growth so you can absolutely bevel before HT. Temper at 400 for 2 hours twice and you'll get a 61HRC easily. Of course, this depends on if the metal was properly thermal treated by the manufacturer beforehand.
Sorry for the late reply! I will most likely be making a follow up video on this to clarify details on what I was doing. The stock thickness I was using was on the thin side, and need to add in that thicker stock should have rough bevels ground in. Overall, I have a better direction for a follow up. Thanks for the comment, and if you can think of anything I should add in there, let me know!
Thanks for the good info. Going to dive into my first blade(1095) and I’m sure this will help.
Extremely Helpful information. Many thanks.
No worries!
I just wanted to say I use 1095 on all of my small knives and I've been having good results with water quenching, and mine seem to come up 60+ hardness, do you think the oil quench on a 1095 gives it slightly less hardness than a water quench? It's high risk high reward maybe, but I haven't had a blade crack on me so far, people warned me water cracks 1095, but mine seem fine.
1095 is a fast quench steel, so that's the reason why your blade reaches higher hardness. Do you use intermittent quench in water?
Wich kind of water quench do you do ?
@@dimmacommunication I use Yaki ire clay water quenching method. Switched over to white paper steel instead of 1095.
@@londiniumarmoury7037 Basically natural clay all over except for the blade ?
@@dimmacommunication Yeah, I put clay over the spine side and flats of the knife, and leave a large portion of the cutting edge bare, where I want it to be hard. 1-2 blades out of every 10 will crack and warp though.
It looked like you quenched the knife with the spine down, is there a reason for that and does it matter?
what do you think about vaccuum heat treating for knives?
This is such a great video. Thank you so much for the detailed instructions.
Quenching plain carbon steel in oil is very forgiving and easy, i don't really get why people have trouble with it. You can make a cycle before quench, getting to cherry red and then letting air cool. If you forged your blade properly, cycles aren't needed. Heat up to cherry red, not above, not below. Some describe the color as "pink". Use shadow to help you see the color better. Get everything nice and even, you don't really need soaking if your blade was forged before (it's all perlite, the carbon will dissolve extremely fast). Then, plunge the blade straight into the oil, trying to not cool one side more than the other, as was said in the video. I personally finish my blade before the quench, doing the grinds and a simple sanding, as a thinner edge will cool off more quickly in oil (but is more tricky to get to an even heat). I also like to dunk my blade in very cold water a few seconds after the oil quench, to get to below room temperature somewhat quickly. It's a kind of low quality cryo treatment, but it's only practical during winter if you have a water bucket.
Then you clean off the oil, give a simple sanding, and do your temper. Do it on a kiln, or do it above the embers of the forge if you like doing it medieval style. Both techniques have pros and cons. Kiln temper is incredibly accurate and can get you a bit more steel performance trough the soaking time and cycles. Flame temper is tricky to do correctly, but allows you to do a differencial temper on your blades. You can use thick forge tongs heated red hot in the forge, and you clamp the back of your knife while you're getting the edge to straw or yellow/bronze, depending on the use. The hot tongs along with a wet rag will give you a blue back with a straw edge. A knife tempered like that will outperform a knife tempered in a kiln in terms of pure resilience, while keeping most of the hardness and steel performance for the edge. But it's a pain to do, and you can't do stainless like that.
Temper in a toaster oven just like a tempering oven, 2x2hr cycles. I would also add that critical is whenever the knife becomes non-magnetic, never higher really, because austenite is not magnetic even below the curie point. You can throw it in the freezer immediately after quenching for cryo, and it's still half as effective as liquid nitrogen if you do it immediately and your freezer is very cold. Wait even minutes and it might do very little.
@@mikafoxx2717 i personally do it the old way, with primitive tools (aka watching the temper colors above hot coals after quench in water). A short temper helps avoid martensite embrittlement, wich develops as retained austenite turns into hard martensite during the temper. A short temper doesnt allow much retained austenite to convert. But the modern way to deal with that is two long tempers, but you need a low température otherwise you'll really drop in hardness
@@ForgeDuLys Ah, interesting point about the martensite enbrittlement. didn't know that fast tempers did that differently. Would be interesting to compare side by side a double toaster oven temper versus a forge temper.
Good video bro. Why’d you stop making them?
Hey sorry for the late reply! So there is a long story behind that one. The shop I was working out of was sold and I had to pack things up. I finished college up and was moving around doing seasonal work. Landed a full time gig and finally was able to buy a house. I now have a large shop space to work out of and getting things set up and getting caught back up on my skillset. I should be making some more videos soon!
1095 is a water quenching steel. You can get some hardness out of it from oil, but for full proper hardness use water.
What would be a good process for a chopper? Im looking to remake a popular wall hanger bowie knife with the big belly. Its a favorite of my dads and he's always wanted a good version
Sorry for the late reply! How thick are you looking to go? I find anything over 1/8 inch bevels need to be rough ground in if using canola oil. Ill probably make a follow up video on this one soon. I just bought a house and finally have a work space again after a few years of inactivity
@@BearRiverKnives I'm not sure, I think it might even be 3/16ths. Its huge. Also congrats on the house! No apology nessesary!
@@buckwild6587 Thank you!! And its a bit thick for canola. Thinning it out will help a lot, but I usually don't work with stock that thick.You can try an interrupted quench by starting with water, then finishing in oil. Walter Sorrels has a few videos on it I believe, but Ill have to check in on that. 1095 is a water hardening steel above I believe 1/4. inch, but is prone to cracking thinner than that. Learned that one the hard way lol
@@BearRiverKnives I appreciate your knowledge! Thank ya mate!
Excellent!! How do you know the temprature in the forge or the metal? Do you just use a magnet to test it or do you use an infrared gun or something?
An infrared gun isn't the best as the usual home game guns don't go up high enough, as well as there can be temperature fluctuations in the forge so that can be inaccurate in that regard. The steel is the best measure of temperature. The magnet method is the best for basic testing. if you're looking for accuracy, a heat read oven or salt bath is going to be your best bet. Salt baths can be dangerous so if you go that route, use caution.
@@BearRiverKnives I'll have to google salt bath - never heard of that.
I do very close to the same thing as you with canola 130 deg ect i do only do 380deg for hr and a half in the oven but me edge dents is that normal ? doesnt chip doesnt roll
The edge denting probably means that the knife edge didn't fully harden. How thick of stock are you using? I am probably going to make a follow up video to this for thicker stock
Great video man. I am wondering if doing a quench and then tempering on a 1095 fillet knife do you do anything different?
Hey sorry for the late reply. Life has been a bit crazy lately. I just bought a house and have been doing work on that and getting the shop space set back up and organized. For a fillet knife, I would do some things a little different. Because you want a little flexibility in the knife, I would raise the temperature of the temper to somewhere around 450f. That will reduce the edge durability, but will allow the knife to be flexible. The key is to have a thin taper. Fillet knives can be tricky
@@BearRiverKnives no worries thank you so much I will work on my temper.
Even with a bespoke quenchant like v32 which is very fast and ideal for 1095 I still pre heat it for a faster drop in temp.
I just heat treated my first knife. Everything went well but I noticed when i looked at the video my first dip in the oil i went to agitate and i took the blade out for a fraction of the second about an inch from ricasso and the rest of the time it was completely submerged. I checked the knife with a file and it seems like its hardened. Do you think its ok?
it should be fine. the majority of the hardening happens within the first second of the quench if I am not mistaken
Just edge quench 1095 in concentrated brine and then quickly dunk the whole steel in motor oil. Cheap and easy. This method also makes 4130 capable of chopping concrete.
Finally!! Someone mentioned the Rockwell for a blade!
I noticed when u quenched the blade it was not cherry red..why not?
Glad you noticed! The blade was red, however the camera didn't pick it up as the sun was shining fairly bright that day. I have a magnet on hand to check the blade before I quench. Wish I did show the color in the video though
Also, have you tested a blade after you've ground the bevels to see if it maintained the 59 HRC?
Its a little hard to do an HRC test on bevels as they are angled, but you can get the hardened files to test for general hardness. On thicker stock (over 1/8 inch) canola has a hard time getting full hardness in the steel. I would like to do a follow up video on this soon to talk about that. That is an important detail I left out of the vid. thicker stock you'll want to put some bevels on it prior to heat treat. You'll get a large amount of the beveled area hardened and the remainder up to the spine will generally stay on the softer side. Again, generally lol
@@BearRiverKnives Thanks again because I actually have some 3/16 stock I was planning on making my next knife from.
@@BearRiverKnives I actually just watch a vid on sharpness testing chisels. He said that they have the advantage of being able to test the cutting edge.
I did everything you said and I still ended up at 50HRC. What are some key things that you have to nail in order to get 59HRC.
Sorry for the late reply! How thick is the steel you are using?
Good results at 3/32" thick. Good to know.
Do you use that Ryobi band saw to cut out your blanks? If so, what blade are you using on it? I bought the same saw so I didn't have to spend so much time at the belt sander doing shaping work, but I haven't found a blade that'll stay sharp through 1/8" 1095.
No the Ryobi is for wood handles. The blade spins too fast to cut steel and its too much of a hassle to put a new motor on. you will need a motor that spins really slow and needs torque. there is no real effective way to slow down the motor on the unit as its a simple AC motor. it is doable to put a new motor on it, but I decided to get a portable bandsaw from harbor freight and mount it to the wall. they are like $100 and to make a mount is super simple if its attaching to the wall. Simple Little Life has a video that can give you an idea how its done
Buy a porta band and a swag off road table, it makes a
Appreciate all the great tips.
1095 is a simple carbon steel. So not much manganese or other alloying elements that would kinda support the formation of a martensitic crystalline structure all the way through the entire blade. So without grinding the bevels beforehand and with a relatively mild quench as you do it it raises the question whether you still reach 59 HRC on the actual cutting edge after tempering and grinding the bevels. How thick is the thing at the moment you go to the heat treatment?
WUNDER8AR the blade is 3/32 before quench. I failed to mention in the video if you are doing thicker knives you should be pre grinding bevels as 1095 is a shallow hardening steel.
Can palm oil be a substitute for the canola oil?
You can just use soybean oil. Same viscosity anyway.
Thanks from your newest subscriber
Thank you! Very timely for me to have found your video as I am just finishing prep for HT on my first 2 knives! I notice that you do not do any normalizing/thermo cycling prior the final heat & quench - your system works for you!!!
Wow dude this is super helpful
Awesome man Thanks so much !
Is the temperature in Celsius or Fahrenheit
Well, we both do the same methods... I've had problems with chipping... I'm thinking I need to temper longer.. I also thinking I may be getting the blade a bit too hot.. I can make such a beautiful knife, but then my heat treat sucks.
The Dood yeah the heat treat is key. Have you broken open your blades to see what the grain looks like? Overheating the steel causes some large grain which will weaken the edge. How are you testing your blade?
Why do knifemakers recommend a temperature much lower than the 1650°F that industry recommends?
1095 has a range of heat treatment. Going hotter than 1650*f is only going to grow grains. In a forge, its easy to overshoot that. The effective range to heat treat 1095 its recommended between 1550*F and 1650*F. The hotter you go, the more you risk cracking the blade or growing grain by overshooting the temp. If you have an electric oven, still recommend 1550*F or 1575*F as most ovens will have a range the temperature can fluctuate
Just curious. doesn't grinding your bevels after heat treat and temper compromise the heat treat?
Good question! It depends on how you grind the bevels. Tempering your knife is the process of softening the steel. The tempering temperatures vary per steel. after a tempering cycle, theoretically any temperature lower than the initial temper wont damage your original heat treatment. While grinding, as long as heat treatment colors dont show up on your edge while you are grinding, you are golden. Keep the blade cool and there shouldn't be an issue (though a couple blown edges might happen, but everyone experiences that every now and again)
Makes sense. Thanks for the reply.
Another thing to consider is that in order to truly temper your knife, it is supposed to be done immediately after hitting 120-150 F after your quench. So grinding a day or more later shouldn’t truly temper the blade, but I don’t really know.
I think a lot of people just play it safe, and don’t over grind just because we hear it from others. But I tend to think it isn’t as big of a thing as some people suggest.
Personally I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a hardened blade to nearly 400F by grinding it a bit. You’d feel that, that’s hot. Yes the surfaces on a small scale will get very hot for very short time periods, but most people take it slow and use water to cool the blade. Tempering takes an hour at least of constant heat also, which you won’t get close to by grinding.
I think a real test would be to attempt to temper the edge after heat treat by grinding, and see if you can actually affect the blade by grinding.
@@BearRiverKnives I’m just going to get the knife sharp and shaped then quench. That would be ok right?
@@CagedSUPERMAN It depends really. The thickness of the stock you choose will impact how the blade hardens. I find that anything above 1/8 inch has ha difficult time hardening with canola. However if you bevel it, the edge will harden. But leave the final edge thickness a bit on the thicker side. I wouldn't recommend sharpening the knife before quenching as the edge is too thin. It's prone to overheating, cracking, and warping the thinner you go
Good information. Thanks
Nice video 👍 THANKS!!!
I'm not a blade smith but trying to learn how to heat treat a knife. I'm making a bowie style knife. 1095 spring steel. It's 18 inches long and just under 3/8 thick. I've taken smaller pieces of the 1095 and heated them to 1475 for about an hour. I quench in quenching oil and my 1095 doesn't retain the 28rc from when I measured before the heat treatment. It drops to 10 rc. If I try to heat treat another small piece as a test...is my temp correct at 1475? And for how long? If the piece is still magnetic after an hr in the oven....do I keep it in oven longer until it's non magnetic?
With 1095 come to find out, anything thicker than 1/4 inch is water quench. However, 1095 is also a shallow hardening steel which means the core wont fully harden. Id recommend grinding some bevels in to thin the edge out just a touch. be sure they are even and leave plenty of thickness. agitate in your quench medium. 1475 is the correct temperature, but if you have an oven and you are indeed holding it at that temperature, hold it no longer than 10 minutes. I dont see much of a difference soaking vs heating to quench with a forge. Are you indeed using an oven? if you are at 1475*f, the blade should be non magnetic. so recap, if you are wanting to grind the bevels in after the quench, with stock that thick, use a water or brine (salt water) and agitate in the quench. if you grind the bevels in prior in order to use oil, make sure you have plenty of oil and agitate. 1095 is a bit fussier than other steels so it might take some time. should have included that info in the video, but most folk dont make knives above 1/4 inch steel. give that a go and see if that works. if not, go to my Facebook page and there should be a call now button. feel free to give me a shout
Thanks for replying...I've tried to use our electric oven with smaller pieces of 1095 3/8 thick...it's takes about 15 minutes to reach 1475. But the small pieces never reach a red color color. After 1 hr the pieces turn a red orange color and become non magnetic then i oil quench and I only get a 28-30 rc. I took a oxy/acc torch and heated small pieces of 1095 as well a red orange color non magnetic but quenched it in water.
50 -52rc. I want this knife to cut branches like a hatchet but I need the edge to retain its sharpness. Would flame hardening with the torch be better with a water quench? At 3/8 thick the knife would be tough enough...right?
if you haven't ground in any bevels, then a water quench could work, though note that water is very aggesive, though at that thickness, water might be your best option. Id suggest adding a few pounds of salt to a 5 gallon bucket of warm water (or any quench tank that will hold enough water to cool the entire piece of steel. Also, with your oven, make sure your thermocouple is still good as they do go bad after time. also make sure your piece is vertical and not laying flat on the floor of the oven. try a decent size test piece in water just to be sure. 1095 can have micro fractures if quenched in water if its too hot so be sure to test some pieces
I have been experimenting with small pieces. A cold water quench gets me 40 to 52 rc....but it's not consitant all over the piece. Yes standing the piece up will yield a better hardness. I'm just trying the heating times now...
10 minutes at 1500F isn't long enough even thought the piece is a cherry red color it is still magnetic. Also...the rc drops from 28 to 10rc.
30 to 45 minutes at 1500 F yields me 40 to 58rc. The piece is more orange than red.
what brand and model oven are you using? soak times should not exceed 10 minutes. However, soak time starts once the steel gets to temperature. it depends on the oven you have at this point I think
The title of this his video should be "how to completely quench 1095 wrong."
How do you feel about quenching 1095 in used motor oil instead of canola oil?
used motor oil doesn't really work terribly well. Its hit or miss, depending on the oil, how used it is and the like. Also, its very bad for your health to breath in. You would have better luck sticking with canola
What if the canola oil is previously used ?
How do you know the temp of the blade when you heat it up?
To be honest, its a little bit of a guessing game with a forge, but take it to non-magnetic, and a "little further" then quench. A heat treat oven would be ideal, but the forge is a cheaper option
If you have a k-type thermocouple why don't you put it in the Forge? You can hold and maintain a accurate temperature in a propane Forge with a k type like you have
the issue is the gas is subject to many different factors that will affect the burn of the fuel. I like clean burns so it gets upward to 2400*f in the forge I have. Maintaining a specific temperature via adjustable regulators is very hard and the temp will fluctuate too widely. However, I'm working on is building a PID controller that has a gas regulator that will shut the gas off once the temperature is reached, then fire it back up when it calls for more heat. That should effectively make a gas heat treatment oven. Only downside I anticipate is that its harder to slowly heat up metals that require slow heat up times that you can get with an electronic unit. Ill post a video once I get this built
I hear you there I do run my Forge with very low oxygen but I also have a big piece of angle iron to protect the knife from the flame that helps with scale too. I like your videos keep up the good work
After you quench and place it your oven at 435 for an hour do you repeat the 435 or no
why not just heat your oil to 400 fahrenheit and leave the knife in the oil and then you dont have to temper it ???
for 1095 or W1 why not just spend the money and get 5L of fast quench oil and be done with it, it's not a big investment and you'll see HRC 65 out of the quench tank and HRC 62 out of the tempering oven? Fast quench oil is designed for 1095/W1 and W2 to get the utmost out of those steels.
1:31 135 degrees F or C?
Sorry should have clarified in the video! its F which would be 57.2c
Or you could spend some money on the correct oil that is designed to quench steel in and not have to bother heating it. And then for your oven, take a piece of scrap steel and put it in your oven at different temps for 2 hours each and use the color of the steel to tell you your real temps, start at 200 and go to 450 in 50 degree increments and make a chart of what setting on your oven yields the actual temp you want, at those lower temps the color changes at very specific temps and this is easy to do and free, once you’ve done it you’ll never need to use a thermometer again.
P226nut I agree with you on one point. If you have a proper quench oil like Parks 50, which is a fast 7 sec quench oil, or maybe you have another brand like McMaster Carr, or Houghton line of quenchants that are 9-10 secs all the way up to 11-16 secs (whatever depends on the steel you use) you do not need to heat your oil...lot of guys still do because the manufacturers say you can, but they do warn that heating proper industrial quench oil does lower its life span. Basically room temp is fine for these professional grades of oil because they have a specific chemical makeup.
As for tempering times, heat treatment 101, read the manufacturers tech sheets, it will give you an HRC chart and a recommended temp chart for tempering (as well as heat treat temps of course) , they also include if they recommend cryogenic treatment.
Don’t guess or mess around guys, if HRC60 (example only) is what you want and the manufacturer says heat at 1900F for 20 mins, oil or air cool to room temp, then temper at 400F for two cycles @ 2hrs each to achieve HRC60, well freaking do it 👍 😂
It didn't look like it was hot, and you're supposed to put the blade facing in, not out...
Like you said a lot of misinformation, size, shape, thickness, will not all work in your setup, home brewed oils are not exactly the same, buy oil made for quenching & get a heat-treating oven is the only wat to get a consistent good blade & forget about this crap people are doing here.
Parks 50.