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Big camp knife (FINISHED)
Zion:
Now the most important part of the knifemaking process, heat treating. A little patience and taking your time goes a long way here. Prepare for it well and get everything lined up and it should go well.
This is chart is very useful. 5160's critical temperature ( the temperature you quench it at ) is between 1475- 1500 degrees. This means we want it at about a cherry red. You can check when it's at the right temp by running a magnet over the blade and if it doesn't stick, that's when you quench. Just make sure not to overheat the blade.
The sun just started going down so now is the perfect time to fire up the forge and get everything ready.
Good supply of wood ready.
Canola oil is a great oil to quench this steel in so that's what I'm using + a casserole dish to store it.
I heat up an old railroad spike to put into the oil to warm it. This results in a better quench.
Before the big moment you wanna make sure the knife will actually fit into the container, making sure all areas of the blade will be submerged. It fits perfect and the spine is still dry, meaning only the edge will be fully hardened.
I take time to get a big, hot fire going so that I can cover mostly the whole blade at once. i run the blade back and forth along the hottest parts of the fire to get a nice even heat throughout. We don't want to let a certain part of the blade overheat.
You can't really see it here because of the camera's flash >:( but the blade is a cherry red. I keep moving it around and checking with a magnet until it doesn't stick, then I heat it some more.
Once the magnet doesn't stick to any part of the blade I plunge the knife edge-first into the oil. I couldn't take a picture of this moment cause it's pretty touchy and I had to move fast. Don't move the blade from side to side once you've quenched it, but forward and backward are fine as this shouldn't warp the blade. I let it sit in the oil for about a minute before I take it out.
Here I test the steel with a file. I ran it up and down the blade and it didn't leave a mark. You want a good sharp file to skate off the steel when applying moderate pressure.
Unfortunately I'm not perfect and messed up slightly. While i was heating up the knife, I was having trouble getting the first inch or two of the blade by the choil hot. This resulted in a slightly darker shade of red when I quenched, which was a little lower than critical temperature. See that darker area around my maker's mark? That's the sign of softer steel. The rest of the blade is that light gray, (harder steel ) while the tang and spine are the darkest (softest). This is good because the spine will have more of a spring temper and be more flexible. Perfect for a large blade. This mistake really won't effect the performance very much though. A file barely bights into it and it will easily be hard enough to take a good durable edge.
Next is tempering. The chart I put at the top of this post also has the proper information for that as well. Right now the blade is much too brittle to function. It would break while chopping or batonning wood. I roughly sand the blade so that I'll be able to see the temper colors better.
I then put it into the oven for 2 hours at 400 degrees. For a smaller blade for lighter tasks you can temper it lower, but this knife has got to be tough! I pulled it out of the oven a while ago and the color is perfect. I'll get back to you guys later, I have a wrestling tournament tomorrow and will be back late. That's it for now, thanks for lookin!
lebhuntfish:
Thank you very much! That is very informative! I believe with this info I can my knife up to par! Patrick
Zion:
No problem man, glad it helps!
bubby:
Don't stop man we need more >:D
lebhuntfish:
--- Quote from: bubby on January 09, 2016, 09:13:35 pm ---Don't stop man we need more >:D
--- End quote ---
+1
Patrick
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