First "real steel"

[Doug Lester]

Keep in mind, what happened is not necessarily a defect. With some blades, mostly large choppers and swords the pearletic spine and the martensetic edge could be something that you want to do. Even on a small blade it probably wouldn't present a problem it probably wouldn't be important one way or the other. Though there are those who are rather devoted to the idea of a soft spine and a hard edge.

Doug

[Ed Tipton]

As mentioned by Ray, I think the real culprit here may have been grabbing the blade in the darkened area with tongs that were significantly cooler that the blade steel. This very thing caused me a lot of grief when I was working with CRU 5V and was grabbing the steel by the tang area. Then, when I tried to drill through the tang, It was too hard although the tang had not been quenched. The simple act of grasping the tang with cold tongs was enough to "quench" the steel and thus hardening it to the point where it could not be drilled.
I resolved the problem by allowing the tongs to soak in the heat long enough to get them up to temp. You might want to give it a try if your problem persists...in any event, it could help by preventing a problem in the future.

[Naboyle]

Well guys I took your advice and started to give this knife a test. I don't expect it to be able to pass the ABS test but I don't want a POS either. So here's what I cut...

It's a 1" dowel rod I cut in half twice. Then I took a cardboard box and started cutting it into pieces. My wife started bit@hing about my mess. After all this it will still shave hair off my arm. To be honest I surprised myself. I've never had a knife that would hold an edge like this. Guess my question is, is this a good start? What do most of you expect out of your knives? I'm happy with this so far so what is something to strive for? Cut thru a 2x4 twice and still shave hair?

[Ed Tipton]

Naboyle...I think you've got it. Of course, you could continue with your testing up to and including the full ABS/JS stamp test which includes the chopping a 2 x 4 and the rope test as well as the 90 degree bend test....but is all of that really necessary??? I'm all for testing, and if you are so inclined... well then knock yourself out...but I think you can reach a point of deminishing returns. The knife is obviously hardened sufficiently for normal use. From what I could tell in the picture all of the cuts were clean...and as you said, it still shaved hair after cutting the cardboard. This to me is enough...especially given that you have a fully finished knife. I would reserve the destructive testing for those blades that were properly HT and yet were not up to speed in some other way esthetically speaking. If you test them to destruction then that can provide you with some useful info without deliberately damaging something that is good enough to go out into the world and be seen by others.
Give yourself a pat on the back and start another knife. You'll have plenty of opportunities to do more thorough testing.

[Naboyle]

Thanks Ed. I'm happy with the results. I just wanted another opinion from someone who's done it longer than i have! Hopefully I can match the heat treat again. I'm glad I took some notes!

[WynnKnives]

I agree with what Ed said, you'll have plenty of opportunities to test things. Like last night, I was trying a new idea on a sheath, about 90% done and ruined the entire thing... so situations like this, take a deep breath start over, and test the product you cant take into public. That way you don't have to ruin a good product every time from testing, but still can gain the testing knowledge.