Did you normalize it three times before heat treating ad queching? I kow you likely know that, but I cracked a file knife by trying to heat treat again after it had already been heat treated and quenched. Dave Budd ended up telling me the error of my ways, since then I've been able to successfully harden previously hardened knives that I ended up tempering too soft.
Yep, i used a normalisation cycleBlade is straight and un-cracked as she ever was, gonna clean her up and refit her handles today!
Good stuff, new pics inbound!
Good looking knife, Kai. It looks real handy. Mike, your blade looks like a beast. Looks like it could do some damage.....lol
Hi Kai, Mike i may be wrong but is normalisation where you place the blade in the oven for a few hours, just in a regular sort of heat?. Mac
There are no strangers, just friends I have not met
mOtxr, Normalisation involves bringing steel up to critical temperature and letting it cool down to ambient as slowly as possible, and repeating the process several times, i usually do 3 or more. Normalisation helps remove working stresses placed on the steel over the course of working the steel to shape etc. These working stresses, if not removed, can warp or crack the blade during the quenching (hardening) process. What you are describing sounds like tempering, where we draw some of the hardness away from the blade after hardening in order to return some flexibility to the very brittle steel. Hope this helps!
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