slip joint question

[Omega]

one the spring do i quench when using o1 also do i just use a torch to temper the front of the spring or do i temper the whole spring and then use the torch thx


Bill



Sweeet:evil

[Ray Rogers]

Bill,

You may have been in a bit of a hurry when you wrote that question. It's a little difficult to understand what you are asking but I think I get the idea.

When making a spring from O1 you heat treat it just like you would do for a blade. Then you temper the whole spring to whatever hardness you want (which will be softer than a blade). You'll be using a higher tempering temperature on the spring than on a blade. With a torch, you would be trying to get the spring to turn blue....

[Geno]

Bill,
Always heat treat any steel to it's maximum hardness, then soften it up to where you want the hardness to be by the temper.
After quench, temper both blade and spring at about 350 in the oven for an hour, let cool then repeat.
After second temper, take the blade out and cook the lock at 450-475 for another hour.This makes the spring softer than the blade but will still spring back true.If it gets too soft, it won't spring back but bends instead.
Hope that helps.

[Omega]

i was headed off to work so i was a bit hurried thanks for the info this will help alot


Bill



Sweeet:evil

[Omega]

i took geno's advise on the tempering of the spring and NOTHING it seems to have hardened well but it wont bend at all what did i do wrong? THX

Bill



SWEEET:evil

[Ray Rogers]

Sorry Bill, but there just isn't enough information here. It would be helpful if you had put this question in the same thread where Geno gave the instructions so we would know what was said. Or, if you want to start a new thread then give us a quote of what Geno told you.

Even after we get the information about the heat treat I doubt that there will be an obvious answer. Whatever Geno told you would surely be correct but we don't know how well you managed to do the job. Assuming you did it perfectly, how are you trying to bend the spring? If the spring is short and thick you probably won't be able to bend it with your fingers.

If the spring is mounted on the knife and won't bend it is probably too thick and it's time to start removing metal until the spring acts they way you want it too.

Even a fully hardened blade will bend at least a little so when you say your spring "won't bend" we need to know how you came to that conclusion before we can really give you much useful information. If I picked up a leaf spring from a truck and tried to flex it in my hands I would probably conclude that it won't bend either - everything is relative....

[Jason Cutter]

Had a similar problem with my first slipjoint. I retempered it at 500F just to make sure and then when it still was too tight, I used a Dremel tool with a 1/2inch drum sander and slowly took a scallop of steel of the underside of the spring bar between the pinhole and the engagement surface, but a bit closer to the pinhole. It worked after a while. The problem I see with my method was that I was too anxious and started off with too much steel on the lockbar - as a spring it doesn't need to be very big at all. Jason.

[Terry Primos]

I've moved the second slip-joint thread from the General forums and merged them here with the original question and answers so that it will be more cohesive and coherent for all the other folks on the forums.

[Saint Mark]

check out the tutorials - Chris Crawford has one on slipjoints and it talks about the tempering and harding.