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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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  #16  
Old 02-05-2015, 07:48 PM
jmccustomknives jmccustomknives is offline
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Ah, forging. Try this if you aren't doing it already, good forge theory states that you start hot, end below non-magnetic. The final heats should be done below non-magnetic. Your not going to move a lot of material, but it does refine the grain. I use the final heats to remove and work out hammer marks.
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  #17  
Old 02-05-2015, 09:14 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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I would also recommend that you train yourself to look for decalesence and recalesence (which is the same but while cooling off). Look for it in subdued light and look for the shadow that passes across the steel. Acutally, I was able to spot recalesence first and then learned to spot the shadow as the steel heated up. I still check with a magnetic, however, just as confirmation.

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  #18  
Old 02-05-2015, 09:19 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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I would be careful about working steel down into a black heat. Some alloys really don't like it. As far a grain refinement goes I don't think that you are going to see that working the steel with a hammer. It's like the old idea of edge packing. It's another thing that the old timers swear by but it just doesn't happen.

Doug


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  #19  
Old 02-05-2015, 09:35 PM
jdale jdale is offline
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I did some testing tonight, I heated quenched and broke four pieces of 1084 all from the same bar. Top to bottom 1515?F, 1557?F, 1570?F, 1650?+ and piece from the knife in question. The parks 50 temp didn't vary more than 15? from start to end of tests.


The last bar was left in the forge for about 2 minutes above 1650?. There is grain growth but nothing anywhere near the blade in question. To me it really seems like the grain growth was during the forging. Man I really need a paragon
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  #20  
Old 02-08-2015, 05:27 AM
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Here's a cool thing that you never hear about. If you are paying close attention to decal and recal, they will expose any hairline stress cracks in the steel as the "shadow" moves past the spot. Very helpful to those that work with recycled steels like sawblades and leaf springs ......... and those that like to strike steel "just one more time" before reheating.


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  #21  
Old 02-08-2015, 03:06 PM
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GHEzell GHEzell is offline
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If the grain growth happened during forging normalizing should have taken care of it, which leads to the question: what's your normalizing procedure?


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  #22  
Old 02-08-2015, 03:11 PM
jdale jdale is offline
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I after forging I heated to 1600?f and let cool overnight in vermiculite. I repeated this 3 times.
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  #23  
Old 02-08-2015, 03:21 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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That's not normalizing, that's critical annealing and can lead to a problem with carbide growth. If you have a regulated heat source I think that experience supports doing successively lower heats with air cooling between. If you are like me and don't have a regulated heat source you just have to do the best you can by watching for decalesence and starting out with a forgiving alloy.

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  #24  
Old 02-08-2015, 03:29 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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QUOTE: I after forging I heated to 1600?f and let cool overnight in vermiculite. I repeated this 3 times.

That's not actually normalizing. Since you did it just after forging and let the steel cool down completely you annealed the blade. Annealing only needs to be done once if you do it at all and there's usually no need to do it unless you need to machine the steel before you continue with the HT. Technically, if you had meant to anneal the steel then heating to just non-mag would have been better but 1600 will work. But, that didn't normalize the blade.

Normalizing is part of the HT process. To normalize, you would heat to 1600 or so (above non-mag) then let the blade cool to black in still air and then immediately re-heat the blade before it has a chance to cool any further. This process can be done up to three times. Immediately after the last normalizing cycle the blade is heated to the usual non-mag temp and quenched...


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  #25  
Old 02-08-2015, 04:07 PM
jdale jdale is offline
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Up to 1600 and back to black seems like a lot to do when heat treating in a forge. It is difficult enough to get the heat to maintain at 1500 long enough for the blade to get evenly heated.

Side note; I got the 1600 then cool information from Kevin cashen's website so I thought it was reliable info.
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  #26  
Old 02-08-2015, 04:42 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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QUOTE: I got the 1600 then cool information from Kevin cashen's website so I thought it was reliable info.


I'm sure whatever Kevin said is indeed reliable info but I'm thinking you might want to read it again more closely. At a casual glance its really hard to tell the difference between the annealing and normalizing processes and the why and when to do them. This is a misunderstanding that crops up quite a lot in the forums so don't feel like you are the only one who ever got bit by it.

As for actually doing the process, it really isn't difficult. Just heat the blade like you do for quenching but when you get to the non-mag point just stay in the heat a little longer than usual. Then pull the blade and hold it in tongs until it turns black (don't wave it around), and then put it back in the heat .....


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  #27  
Old 02-08-2015, 05:10 PM
jdale jdale is offline
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Will it be ok to do the process with clay on the blade?

I have another blade that was "normalized" the same way and heat treated, think it would be OK to re normalize it and quench again?
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  #28  
Old 02-08-2015, 05:24 PM
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Doing the process with clay on the blade is OK but the heating and cooling repeatedly like that might cause some of the clay to pop loose. To prevent this, I like to wrap my blade loosely (about 1 turn per inch) with iron wire (bailing wire) while the clay is still wet. The clay might pop loose but as long as it stays in place it can still do its job.

Not all steel can be put through the HT process without first being annealed but 1084 can. Re-normalizing and then re-heat treating your 1084 blade should be OK ....


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  #29  
Old 02-08-2015, 08:11 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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It is also difficult to maintain temperature in a forge and it's not the temperature of the forge that needs to be maintained at a given temperature, it's the steel. That's why the best heat treating set-up that you can have is a regulated oven or a molten salt pot but most of us are stuck with doing it my eye and a magnet.

Doug


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  #30  
Old 02-08-2015, 09:03 PM
jdale jdale is offline
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I have wanted a paragon for a while now and since my governor signed a bill requiring all online businesses to charge sales tax to anyone buying from Michigan i will be saving up and buying a 24" Paragon before October 1.
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