I would say for the next try, make the stands for the kiln open on the top so you don't need to knock them off just lift the bar up. For loading the kiln have the rear stand in the kiln already and standing on its own while the front stand is outside and cannot stand on its own, you put it in with the bar. This way when you remove the bar from the kiln you lift up the bar, the front stand falls over and out of the way while the stand in the kiln stays standing but is also out of the way, then you quench like normal.
My suggestions: At the back of the kiln - a small piece of fire brick that the rod rests on top of - that way it just stays in the kiln and you won't need to "knock it off" perhaps something similar for the front as well. Instead of the round bar on the rod to hold with tongs - use a small bit of flat bar or even square bar to grip at the angle you need it at with the tongs. Or use the second pair of tongs to grip the rod from the top and dunk it in the oil that way. Either way - great idea and I may incorporate something similar for my own heat treat production runs!
Great review of process at the end, appears to be a reasonable heat difference as they are small knives, could you just bolt them together with all thread and have spacers in between the knives, you have different hole sizes in the knives to give you options. Great content, cheers
Great little puzzle to throw out! So here my two cents. What if the bar you grab is attached to a nut, so that it can rotate from vertical to horizontal. Two blockers to only allow the grab bar to rotate 90 degrees. Hard to explain but what I'm thinking is that then you could hold the grip with your tongs and you only need to rotate your wrist.
Thank you for #3. Rim spingly spam dangler. Great name. I say "V" notches rather that "nubbins". The knife won't slide around as much. Also, rather than pivoting the device in the tongs, have a second bar come straight up from the top near the middle of the main bar then grab that with the second tongs. That whole pivot thing is taking way to long and is a potential drop failure.
A British knife company does batches like this. They run theirs on the kiln floor with a rod through the tangs. Set up like you have but instead of running it long ways run it horizontally and without a stand . Then you pull out as normal for a single knife and quench. I have a vertical kiln a use threaded rod with nuts to hang them. Great for thermal cycle still not sure for quench.
I use a vertical quench for processing batches of small knives, similar set up except I just leave a little tab on the end of the tang I can tack them to a circular holder. Pull them up and dunk them. So it does require a bit of thinking a step ahead in your design and how you intend to go about processing them. The horizontal method works pretty well for air hardening metals because I can just do the same by welding them to a thin piece of 304ss and wrapping them all in the same piece of foil- as long as your quench plates are wide/long and i can usually get about 6 done at a time that way. So maybe with the old long boy type kiln, just turn him on its side and secure it to the trolley so its not going to bonk itself on the floor and give that a go
Can you drill and tap your “barnacles?” You could put a small (1/4-3/8 long) SHCS in between each blade. It could possibly keep them secure enough that you would be able to get them out of the kiln and into the oil faster. Just a thought.
Threaded rod, through the holes, nuts to lock them in place and hold them firm, only like ½" apart. Put them in edge up, point away from the door. Grab firmly dunk in oil. The speed there definitely seemed slow and the colour was dropping off quickly. Rockwell tester is a Shure fire way to check
maybe make 2 freestanding legs that the that the bar simply rests on and then you can lift the bar up and foward and then out of the oven. maybe a small t shape rod so your tongs can gran that ez.
What might help is to have the tine your grabbing with the tongs vertical, then cut 4 pieces of bar and make two "T " shapes turn them upside down so the top of the T is on the bottom, then weld one to each end of the bar turning the whole thing into a fixed stand making sure that the blades are just off the bottom of the kiln, then you can just dunk the whole lot into the oil. Will save precious time. All depends on the height of the kiln if youve enough room to grab the tine. If the kilns wider than it is taller you can just the whole thing on its side and rest the tine on something inside the kiln so that when you pull it out it can automatically rotate and go into the oil. Also just use some stainless nuts i stead of the nubs, just leave some space for everything to move freely and theres no risk of bladss coming together.
Love this vid. Always love your content. How about a threaded rod, nuts on each side of the knife so the dont move around and you dont have to be so fragile when moving around?
Just a thought but make a stand on each end to set the bar of knives on that way you could grab the rods of knives move outside stand out of the way and pull knives out leaving back stand in the kiln till you are done quenching make a small 45 on end of rod holding knives to grab onto with the tongs
You need the knives solid on there imho , idk if threaded Rod would work or what but that’s issue I see .Wire each knife on the bar, ticky tack the handle to the bar clean it up later, drill holes in the rod for cotter pins
Great vid bro... Just an idea, why not using a vertical cylindrical stand with hook on the perimeter for the knives😉 ( sorry for my english i' m a stupid frenchy)
pretty deep kiln and wide but not very tall , 3 small racks sideways holding 3 knives each just the bar setting on top of them . the sideways leg would let you grab it out of the kiln and with the knives swiveling on the rack you can grab and go straight to dunking in the oil without any extra movements . I know that is only 9 at a time but still way more economical than one at a time .
If you had a little shelf inside each end of your can you wouldn't have to rotate the tongs before quenching, just drop the rod on to the shelves. Then it would be supported and in the oil while you reposition the tongs to agitate in the oil if nec.
Did you know that you should temper the knives in the first 30 min from quenching, because after that the irreversible processes take place. it doesn't mean it won't work but it is the optimal time for that. next problem i saw is that the temp in front of the door will be lower than it is in the middle of the kiln. Stay safe.
Why use the stands at all? Would it work to let the knives sit on the kiln floor (edges facing up) and when you pick up the bar they rotate on their own downward? I like what other people commented and you suggested with putting an angled bar on the end so you don't have to fiddle with two tongs trying to rotate the bar and if you let the knives sit on the kiln floor you only have the step of picking up the bar and quenching. Seems better than having to fiddle with the stands.
Just rotate the tongues 90° length wise (flip your wrist) when you get the knives out. Then you have the pin going up and should have enough length for the dip.
Try this. Have a v-block deep in the kiln. Have small hooks on 5 places 2 on one side and 3 on the other. Orient the blades perpendicular to what you had now. Have Your oil tank at the same height as the kiln. Have square or triangle form at end, bent in such way that it could be outside of the tank (think tight square S form) that could give stability in the kiln but will not go into the tank. Then You only need to have one continuous move from kiln to tank. Fast and efficient.
I’d suggest tapping the rod ends and screwing on the legs, making it easier to insert and remove the knives from the oven. You could then just quench the whole thing, speeding up the time it takes to quench.
@@Simplelittlelife you know better, but it looked like the whole thing (rod, legs, & knives) would fit into your ammo box if you shortened the rod by an inch or two. Just a thought.
just so you know, I know nothing about making knives or heat treating. That being said, I like the thought below about a v notch. What if you had two bricks that had a v notch on the top. The bricks could stay in the oven while you grab the side bar and pull all the knives out.
You need a hanger for the rod that stays in the kiln (half circle hook in front and back of kiln) then you then can grab the rod from the closest end and lift it off the hanger and pull the rod with the knives out of the kiln.
What if you bolt all of the knives together through smallest hole, but have them fanned out resembling a ninja star? All of the points would be separate but the entire profile would be narrow enough to fit the can
Very smart and such a brainstorming 😅. Well in my lewel, I would quench one by one. As you said, you lost some heat very fast. Your system is very interesting and would need a « how to get faster out the oven ASSP » process. I really would love to have one of those knives. But I guess it might be hard 😂. Bravo 🙌
What about having a bigger quench tank and a stand that you just pull out and quench the whole thing. If you did not have to worry about dropping the legs and rotating it, I think you would have much better success.
Make the cross bar long enough so they just hang on the outside of the ammo can fill it op with enough oil to cover the blades and just set it on the top and just submerge the blade not the whole thing
Instead of the little rod you have to grab, weld a small pipe or even a nut in the centre perpendicular to the "nubbin rod". Then instead of tongs, just use a rod with a 90 on the end to reach in and insert into the pipe or nut. When you pull it out it will spin in the pipe/nut with out needing to readjust, self leveling. Not sure that made sense. hahaha
It's a prototype... Very few of anyone gets a design right first time. Read the comments of other people's ideas and take the bit you think will improve your design and go from there. If it works after 10 or even 20 versions at least you've learnt what works and what doesn't.
could you try to make a L shaped leg that would be under all the blades for its foot and then have one side that goes up the back of the kiln and have a hole that the blade holder could slide into suspending it from only one side. So you would not have to knock any legs off just pull out blade holder and head for the oil leaving the single leg behind.
Interesting, Could you just affix the legs with a nut or something and just dung the whole shebang in the oil? Seems that would be a lot less fiddling from the kiln to the oil. c
Yeah I could do that. I think I would need a quench tank with more volume so it doesn’t get too warm but that could very well be worth looking into. Great idea!👍
I’ll take any excuse to tig weld 😆👍 also, I’d have to cut 1/2 the thickness of the bars to get the detent that I have with the nubbins and I was worried about losing strength when it got hot.
I personally don't like it. It takes too long and when the steel is at that temperature and you have to maneuver so much, not only is time and heat lost, but I also don't see it as a safe way to do it. I would try to use one or two L profiles and make a notch in which to somehow lock the knife blades and be able to grab them and without changing the grip immerse them in the oil.
I am really torn about this approach. You are not a mass manufacturer making thousand of knives a day. This series of 10+1 might be kind of your maximum batch that you do. I had the smae impression that the heat drop was quite high before you got into the oil, but on the other hand really hard to judge on video. When you do the next batch time the process and compare to this method. If you just gain some minutes then I would not take the „risk“ of an insufficient hardened blade. I think it is also dependent on the steel. In my experience O1 is quite forgiving other steels are not where you need to get the blade into the quench media as fast as possible. What’s your quech oil? Canola oil or Parks 50?
I’m not sure why you’re worried about knocking the legs off, if you make your jig long enough so the legs fit outside the quenching bastion you can just set it on top and let the knives hang down into the liquid. I feel like this was something that would have been better if just made simple but you over engineered it way too much and make it ineffective.
I reckon you're overthinking it a bit too much. I've done this using stainless tig wire. I just thread a nut between each blade to space them out. I lay them on a fire brick on their spines. They all come out on the one loop of wire and I quench them at the same time. Nothing can fall off. No stand required. Equal spacing due to the nuts. Cheers, Ash.
Enjoying the consistency of videos lately cheers
Thank you!
Love it!!! Necessity is the mother of invention!!! Can't add anything to the many good ideas below. Keep on keepin' on!!!!
Well said. There a ton of great ideas in the comment section for this one. I always learn more than I share that’s for sure. 👍
I love your content man, you crack me up! Nubbin and the beep beeps had me rolling!
Hahaha, thank you so much👍
Keep up the great craftsmanship and hard work my friend. Forge On. Fab on. Weld On. Keep forge lit. Keep Making. God Bless.
Thank you!
I would say for the next try, make the stands for the kiln open on the top so you don't need to knock them off just lift the bar up. For loading the kiln have the rear stand in the kiln already and standing on its own while the front stand is outside and cannot stand on its own, you put it in with the bar. This way when you remove the bar from the kiln you lift up the bar, the front stand falls over and out of the way while the stand in the kiln stays standing but is also out of the way, then you quench like normal.
My suggestions:
At the back of the kiln - a small piece of fire brick that the rod rests on top of - that way it just stays in the kiln and you won't need to "knock it off"
perhaps something similar for the front as well.
Instead of the round bar on the rod to hold with tongs - use a small bit of flat bar or even square bar to grip at the angle you need it at with the tongs.
Or use the second pair of tongs to grip the rod from the top and dunk it in the oil that way.
Either way - great idea and I may incorporate something similar for my own heat treat production runs!
Great review of process at the end, appears to be a reasonable heat difference as they are small knives, could you just bolt them together with all thread and have spacers in between the knives, you have different hole sizes in the knives to give you options.
Great content, cheers
Great little puzzle to throw out! So here my two cents.
What if the bar you grab is attached to a nut, so that it can rotate from vertical to horizontal. Two blockers to only allow the grab bar to rotate 90 degrees.
Hard to explain but what I'm thinking is that then you could hold the grip with your tongs and you only need to rotate your wrist.
Thank you for #3. Rim spingly spam dangler. Great name.
I say "V" notches rather that "nubbins". The knife won't slide around as much. Also, rather than pivoting the device in the tongs, have a second bar come straight up from the top near the middle of the main bar then grab that with the second tongs. That whole pivot thing is taking way to long and is a potential drop failure.
A British knife company does batches like this. They run theirs on the kiln floor with a rod through the tangs. Set up like you have but instead of running it long ways run it horizontally and without a stand . Then you pull out as normal for a single knife and quench. I have a vertical kiln a use threaded rod with nuts to hang them. Great for thermal cycle still not sure for quench.
Great stuff !
I use a vertical quench for processing batches of small knives, similar set up except I just leave a little tab on the end of the tang I can tack them to a circular holder. Pull them up and dunk them.
So it does require a bit of thinking a step ahead in your design and how you intend to go about processing them.
The horizontal method works pretty well for air hardening metals because I can just do the same by welding them to a thin piece of 304ss and wrapping them all in the same piece of foil- as long as your quench plates are wide/long and i can usually get about 6 done at a time that way.
So maybe with the old long boy type kiln, just turn him on its side and secure it to the trolley so its not going to bonk itself on the floor and give that a go
The little beeps😂😂😂
Can you drill and tap your “barnacles?”
You could put a small (1/4-3/8 long) SHCS in between each blade. It could possibly keep them secure enough that you would be able to get them out of the kiln and into the oil faster. Just a thought.
Threaded rod, through the holes, nuts to lock them in place and hold them firm, only like ½" apart. Put them in edge up, point away from the door. Grab firmly dunk in oil. The speed there definitely seemed slow and the colour was dropping off quickly. Rockwell tester is a Shure fire way to check
When the video started, your apron looked like body armor. Thought you were anticipating a CD appearance.
Hahaha, what’s a CD?
@@Simplelittlelife Clown-donkey!!!!!!!!!!!!!
maybe make 2 freestanding legs that the that the bar simply rests on and then you can lift the bar up and foward and then out of the oven. maybe a small t shape rod so your tongs can gran that ez.
What might help is to have the tine your grabbing with the tongs vertical, then cut 4 pieces of bar and make two "T " shapes turn them upside down so the top of the T is on the bottom, then weld one to each end of the bar turning the whole thing into a fixed stand making sure that the blades are just off the bottom of the kiln, then you can just dunk the whole lot into the oil. Will save precious time. All depends on the height of the kiln if youve enough room to grab the tine. If the kilns wider than it is taller you can just the whole thing on its side and rest the tine on something inside the kiln so that when you pull it out it can automatically rotate and go into the oil. Also just use some stainless nuts i stead of the nubs, just leave some space for everything to move freely and theres no risk of bladss coming together.
Love this vid. Always love your content. How about a threaded rod, nuts on each side of the knife so the dont move around and you dont have to be so fragile when moving around?
Just a thought but make a stand on each end to set the bar of knives on that way you could grab the rods of knives move outside stand out of the way and pull knives out leaving back stand in the kiln till you are done quenching make a small 45 on end of rod holding knives to grab onto with the tongs
You need the knives solid on there imho , idk if threaded Rod would work or what but that’s issue I see .Wire each knife on the bar, ticky tack the handle to the bar clean it up later, drill holes in the rod for cotter pins
Great vid bro... Just an idea, why not using a vertical cylindrical stand with hook on the perimeter for the knives😉 ( sorry for my english i' m a stupid frenchy)
pretty deep kiln and wide but not very tall , 3 small racks sideways holding 3 knives each just the bar setting on top of them . the sideways leg would let you grab it out of the kiln and with the knives swiveling on the rack you can grab and go straight to dunking in the oil without any extra movements . I know that is only 9 at a time but still way more economical than one at a time .
If you had a little shelf inside each end of your can you wouldn't have to rotate the tongs before quenching, just drop the rod on to the shelves. Then it would be supported and in the oil while you reposition the tongs to agitate in the oil if nec.
Did you know that you should temper the knives in the first 30 min from quenching, because after that the irreversible processes take place. it doesn't mean it won't work but it is the optimal time for that.
next problem i saw is that the temp in front of the door will be lower than it is in the middle of the kiln.
Stay safe.
Why use the stands at all? Would it work to let the knives sit on the kiln floor (edges facing up) and when you pick up the bar they rotate on their own downward? I like what other people commented and you suggested with putting an angled bar on the end so you don't have to fiddle with two tongs trying to rotate the bar and if you let the knives sit on the kiln floor you only have the step of picking up the bar and quenching. Seems better than having to fiddle with the stands.
Just rotate the tongues 90° length wise (flip your wrist) when you get the knives out. Then you have the pin going up and should have enough length for the dip.
Try this. Have a v-block deep in the kiln. Have small hooks on 5 places 2 on one side and 3 on the other. Orient the blades perpendicular to what you had now. Have Your oil tank at the same height as the kiln. Have square or triangle form at end, bent in such way that it could be outside of the tank (think tight square S form) that could give stability in the kiln but will not go into the tank. Then You only need to have one continuous move from kiln to tank. Fast and efficient.
I’d suggest tapping the rod ends and screwing on the legs, making it easier to insert and remove the knives from the oven. You could then just quench the whole thing, speeding up the time it takes to quench.
I had another idea but I saw this one and realized your idea would probably be a better idea than the one I had.
Yeah that would work well but I will have to get a larger quench vessel to try that.
@@Simplelittlelife you know better, but it looked like the whole thing (rod, legs, & knives) would fit into your ammo box if you shortened the rod by an inch or two. Just a thought.
@@Simplelittlelife Either that or a larger oven! 😁
I want to visit Canada just to go to princess auto. Is there anything they don’t sell?!
just so you know, I know nothing about making knives or heat treating. That being said, I like the thought below about a v notch. What if you had two bricks that had a v notch on the top. The bricks could stay in the oven while you grab the side bar and pull all the knives out.
I've done something similar but using rebar tie wire and tying four blades together
Interesting. Thanks for sharing 👍
@@Simplelittlelife use as many strands as needed to get the stiffness desired
You need a hanger for the rod that stays in the kiln (half circle hook in front and back of kiln) then you then can grab the rod from the closest end and lift it off the hanger and pull the rod with the knives out of the kiln.
What if you bolt all of the knives together through smallest hole, but have them fanned out resembling a ninja star? All of the points would be separate but the entire profile would be narrow enough to fit the can
That’s a good idea!
Very smart and such a brainstorming 😅. Well in my lewel, I would quench one by one. As you said, you lost some heat very fast. Your system is very interesting and would need a « how to get faster out the oven ASSP » process. I really would love to have one of those knives. But I guess it might be hard 😂. Bravo 🙌
About bring the oil closer to the oven so it take less time then going to the floor
What about having a bigger quench tank and a stand that you just pull out and quench the whole thing. If you did not have to worry about dropping the legs and rotating it, I think you would have much better success.
Make the cross bar long enough so they just hang on the outside of the ammo can fill it op with enough oil to cover the blades and just set it on the top and just submerge the blade not the whole thing
Instead of the little rod you have to grab, weld a small pipe or even a nut in the centre perpendicular to the "nubbin rod". Then instead of tongs, just use a rod with a 90 on the end to reach in and insert into the pipe or nut. When you pull it out it will spin in the pipe/nut with out needing to readjust, self leveling. Not sure that made sense. hahaha
It's a prototype...
Very few of anyone gets a design right first time.
Read the comments of other people's ideas and take the bit you think will improve your design and go from there.
If it works after 10 or even 20 versions at least you've learnt what works and what doesn't.
You shouldn't jump the nubbin too much.
could you try to make a L shaped leg that would be under all the blades for its foot and then have one side that goes up the back of the kiln and have a hole that the blade holder could slide into suspending it from only one side. So you would not have to knock any legs off just pull out blade holder and head for the oil leaving the single leg behind.
Interesting, Could you just affix the legs with a nut or something and just dung the whole shebang in the oil? Seems that would be a lot less fiddling from the kiln to the oil.
c
Yeah I could do that. I think I would need a quench tank with more volume so it doesn’t get too warm but that could very well be worth looking into. Great idea!👍
Just an idea.... Instead of all the welding just use all thread and some nuts....
I think this is a great lesson on why we choose quality over quantity. HT is so boring 😂
could get a hardness tester
🌺🌺
you could cut notches in the bar save you tig welding
I’ll take any excuse to tig weld 😆👍 also, I’d have to cut 1/2 the thickness of the bars to get the detent that I have with the nubbins and I was worried about losing strength when it got hot.
I personally don't like it. It takes too long and when the steel is at that temperature and you have to maneuver so much, not only is time and heat lost, but I also don't see it as a safe way to do it. I would try to use one or two L profiles and make a notch in which to somehow lock the knife blades and be able to grab them and without changing the grip immerse them in the oil.
😂😂 Hilarious. But Success!!
I am really torn about this approach. You are not a mass manufacturer making thousand of knives a day. This series of 10+1 might be kind of your maximum batch that you do. I had the smae impression that the heat drop was quite high before you got into the oil, but on the other hand really hard to judge on video.
When you do the next batch time the process and compare to this method. If you just gain some minutes then I would not take the „risk“ of an insufficient hardened blade. I think it is also dependent on the steel. In my experience O1 is quite forgiving other steels are not where you need to get the blade into the quench media as fast as possible. What’s your quech oil? Canola oil or Parks 50?
I’m not sure why you’re worried about knocking the legs off, if you make your jig long enough so the legs fit outside the quenching bastion you can just set it on top and let the knives hang down into the liquid. I feel like this was something that would have been better if just made simple but you over engineered it way too much and make it ineffective.
I reckon you're overthinking it a bit too much. I've done this using stainless tig wire. I just thread a nut between each blade to space them out. I lay them on a fire brick on their spines. They all come out on the one loop of wire and I quench them at the same time. Nothing can fall off. No stand required. Equal spacing due to the nuts.
Cheers, Ash.
That’s a great idea! Thank you 👍
I was going to say the same it works well for batches
Why do you have to quench the handles why not just hang them on the bar and make Shure the blades are covered and just let them hang untill cool