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The Newbies Arena Are you new to knife making? Here is all the help you will need.

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  #1  
Old 01-01-2014, 09:51 PM
Hurley Hurley is offline
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Destruction.....lol

So I broke it, now someone please tell me what I'm looking at.





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Last edited by Hurley; 01-02-2014 at 08:14 AM.
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Old 01-01-2014, 11:31 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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The pictures are a little small to get a good look at them. It looks like the grain is moderately fine which is not too bad.

Doug


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  #3  
Old 01-02-2014, 12:56 AM
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Midwinter Midwinter is offline
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Heartbreak.
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  #4  
Old 01-02-2014, 05:31 AM
jmccustomknives jmccustomknives is offline
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If you've ever broke a good file, that's what it should look like. The bigger the grains, the more you missed the heat treat. The one difference is stainless, those steels generally won't ever be that fine.
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  #5  
Old 01-02-2014, 06:39 AM
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Crex Crex is offline
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Grain looks just a little coarse, but could be the pic. Good clean straight break is always a good sign.
Think you're close, maybe just need to be a little tighter on temp before quench.
You did normalize the blade a couple or three times before doing the hardening quench.....didn't you?

Steel and temp specs would help.


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  #6  
Old 01-02-2014, 07:13 AM
WBE WBE is offline
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Looks pretty coarse.
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  #7  
Old 01-02-2014, 08:17 AM
Hurley Hurley is offline
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Smile

I tempered it after the quench at 430 degrees for 2 half hour sessions, normalize no. Think I may have went past non magnetic a little too far before the quench.

New forge gets almost too hot sometimes. Just a little atlas single knife with firebrick insulation, but it tends to sputter because I am almost out of LP, so I have to keep turning the regulator up. Going to get a fresh tank today though. Swirling action is great on it!


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Last edited by Hurley; 01-02-2014 at 08:25 AM.
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Old 01-02-2014, 07:28 PM
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DanCom DanCom is offline
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Keith,

Man you have come a long ways since the first video you did with the weed burner, hammer and vise. Hats off to you my friend. Keep up the good work!

Oh yeah. You changed your profile pic too?

Dan


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Old 01-02-2014, 09:40 PM
Hurley Hurley is offline
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I'm tryin Dan, thanks bro'. Yeah the profile pic is of my GF.....I put it up there one day and guess forgot it was there till now. Guess I better change it before people start hitting on me.........lol


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  #10  
Old 01-03-2014, 09:35 AM
Ed Tipton Ed Tipton is offline
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Hurley...Judging by the picture, the grain is too coarse to my liking, but it could just be the picture quality. The tip about breaking a GOOD file is a good idea. Even a worn out file will still show you what the grain structure should look like. I like to think of it a looking similar to a broken piece of porcelain china. When you get it right, the individual grains will not show, and the overall appearance will be light gray and appear to be silky smooth. The grain structure in your picture will still make a good knife, but it will not be quite as strong as it would with proper grain structure.
If you break the blade immediately after quenching...before tempering...the blade should break fairly easily, and a quick glance will tell you if you hit it correctly or not. Also, just for the record, it is not necessary to actually forge a blade from the steel. Just take a piece of your new steel...heat-normalize-quench the end of the bar, and snap off a short piece. Be exact in what you're doing, and if necessary take notes so that the process can be repeated after you fashion your next blade. Pay particular attention to the color/temp of the steel as well as the time spent in the heat. I would do this a couple of times, and once it is repeatable...then go for it.
A side benefit of doing this is that you will quickly learn the effects that time and temp have on your steels. also, it may help you to have a good magnifying glass available to examine the steel with.
another thing is to try and keep your ambient lighting the same. a small difference in lighting can make the colors of the steel hard to detect.

Last edited by Ed Tipton; 01-03-2014 at 09:45 AM.
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  #11  
Old 01-03-2014, 04:08 PM
Hurley Hurley is offline
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I agree that the grain is a little bit coarse. I can really notice it on about 10 thousandths of the outside near the blade edge where I overheated it a little. The color is mostly what I have been going by, that and a magnet. That process seems to be working pretty well for me except on the last blade (the one in the pic) where I allowed my self to become preoccupied with another blade and it went way past non-magnetic (glowing bright yellow)

But I will continue to test regularly and the magnifying glass is a great idea. Don't know why I tried straining my eyes.


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Old 01-03-2014, 06:37 PM
Ed Tipton Ed Tipton is offline
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Hurley...I have found that the naked eye is quite capable of discerning the correct colors of the steel. I recently acquired a digital non-contact thermometer, and I find that my naked eye does a better job of determining the correct temp.
One thing that is frequently overlooked is the ambient lighting in the area where your forge is set up. It is best to have conditions where the ambient lighting is as constant as possible. Even a small change in the ambient lighting can make the changes in the colors of the steel very hard to detect. It may be to your advantage to use some type of hood to shield natural light from interfering with your process. This is one of the main reasons that almost all blacksmith shops were dark. Once you gain confidence in your ability to accurately determine temperature, then you're on your way.
This area of knifemaking is where the rubber meets the road. You can make a beautiful knife with perfect grinds, but if you screw up the heat treating, you jeopardize the quality of the knife. This is the area that most knifemakers have the greatest difficulty with. A few minutes spent doing test heats with your steel of choice will save you many hours of frustration down the road....and will give you confidence that you are in fact producing a knife to be proud of.
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  #13  
Old 01-03-2014, 07:51 PM
Hurley Hurley is offline
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That's mostly the idea I had. Since I am relatively new, I figured that I could build the prettiest house on the block, but if the foundation is crap, then I'm going to have a lot of unsatisfied owners when their knife breaks.

Ok, maybe I couldn't build the prettiest knife on the block yet.......lol...I am still having some trouble with the plunge, but you get my analogy......lol.


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  #14  
Old 01-04-2014, 06:07 AM
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Just takes one unsatisfied customer Keith..... you know the rest.
Thanks for the better pic, it does tell the tale.
The thermal cycling process, as Ed said, is not the time to lose focus on what you are doing. You can remedy most other oops with sand paper and files, not so with the grain structure in your steel.
You must stay on task. Even if you use a quality oven, you need to monitor temp during the process. Doesn't take much to affect things.
On breaking steels in testing, although you cannot improve a steels characteristics by forging, you can really wreak them. If you are not paying attention you can add micro stress cracks from forging too cold, introduce grain growth with over heating and poor normalization procedures, and burn out carbon in the thin areas if they get too hot. Most of these are not apparent to the naked eye, but will show up in the end product. That being said, I think your break tests will be more telling if you do them post forging of the steel, same as you would a regular blade. Compare apples to apples.


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