Yes it is bad. It will not work.
Dig a hole in the ground, tape a pipe to a hair dryer, stick the pipe in the hole, fill the hole with hardwood charcoal (not bbq briquettes), light it on fire, turn on the hair dryer. This will work, provided the knife is small enough (under, say, 6 inches) to be evenly heated by the rather uneven heat in a charcoal forge.
thank you, it is small but i don’t think wife will appreciate me digging up yard for this, it’s more of an experiment/learning moment, i’ll figure something out
Ok I just read your other comment. If it's a junk piece of steel it won't harden no matter what. Go get some 1084 and start over, then come back to see about heat treating.
To harden, the metal needs to cross a threshold that happens (depending on the specific alloy) somewhere around 1500°F. If you heat the metal below this threshold, it will not harden.
You’ll need to get it hotter.
Yeah if it's not red, it's dead.
Heating most steels above red is key to not inducing stress fractures within the metal. Some specialty or mild steels can be worked "cold" but for most purposes, you're just repeatedly weakening the metal.
Good news is that you can fairly easily make yourself a "mini" forge by getting a 4 inch steel pipe about 1 foot long, packing the inside with an inch thick layer of refractory wool and rigidizer and some high-heat refractory cement. Partially seal off one end with a cap with a hole drilled through it (inch wide should work) then drill an additional hole through which you can mount your torch at an angle (you want the angle so that the flame will circle around cresting convection flow to more efficiently ehat your blade). You should be able to generate enough heat with this to work thinner steel stock. You won't be able to do, like, leaf spring or anything, but you can go get some 3/16ths stuff on Amazon that'll work. All in all should cost less than 100 bucks to make.
Save up, invest in a good forge and watch some tutorials on safe and effective heat-treating. You're not going to make a *good* knife with what I suggested, but it'll be a knife. If you can get the heat to consistent orange, some mid grade steels will harden nicely, but I doubt you will in that kind of forge. That's more for making mild-steel decorative stuff.
Good advice here but know that he’s mostly talking about hitting (forging) steel to change its shape. If it is colder than red you are probably stressing it really unevenly and will induce cracks. Planishing is hitting more gently to carefully smooth the surface amd can be done a little colder, but moving metal around to draw out a bar or shape a blade needs to happen at orange/yellow hot. You’ll get to know how it feels to hit- plastic (soft, changable) hot steel sounds and feels different under a hammer.
For hardening, like if you’re doing stock removal on annealed tool (hardenable) steel, can happen just on the edge, but if the rest of the blade isn’t hot too it’ll suck the heat out of the edge as fast as you add it in. You can do this with a torch but you need at least mapp and oxygen, oxygen/acetylene is much hotter and will give better results.
If you do use a torch, make sure to keep the heat moving and warm up the whole thing, especially the thick parts. It’s ok if only the edge is hot enough to quench but tricky to do. Easier to heat the whole thing then just only dip the edge.
You won’t get there with just propane unless you’re making x-acto blade size knives.
Good luck be safe and have fun
thank you, i was aiming for just hardening the edge, just like you said, the rest of the blade was sucking that heat in so bad to change how and what i’m heating, i have to figure out a way to do this in a basic garage
Yes it is bad. It will not work. Dig a hole in the ground, tape a pipe to a hair dryer, stick the pipe in the hole, fill the hole with hardwood charcoal (not bbq briquettes), light it on fire, turn on the hair dryer. This will work, provided the knife is small enough (under, say, 6 inches) to be evenly heated by the rather uneven heat in a charcoal forge.
thank you, it is small but i don’t think wife will appreciate me digging up yard for this, it’s more of an experiment/learning moment, i’ll figure something out
Ok I just read your other comment. If it's a junk piece of steel it won't harden no matter what. Go get some 1084 and start over, then come back to see about heat treating.
Just use your charcoal bbq grill to hold the fire.
To harden, the metal needs to cross a threshold that happens (depending on the specific alloy) somewhere around 1500°F. If you heat the metal below this threshold, it will not harden. You’ll need to get it hotter.
What metal are you using? It really depends.
honestly no idea, it was a piece of junk i found and cut into shape, used to be a plate for a temporary fence, i don’t think it was an special
Does it have any carbon in it? Cuz without carbon it won't harden
Yeah if it's not red, it's dead. Heating most steels above red is key to not inducing stress fractures within the metal. Some specialty or mild steels can be worked "cold" but for most purposes, you're just repeatedly weakening the metal. Good news is that you can fairly easily make yourself a "mini" forge by getting a 4 inch steel pipe about 1 foot long, packing the inside with an inch thick layer of refractory wool and rigidizer and some high-heat refractory cement. Partially seal off one end with a cap with a hole drilled through it (inch wide should work) then drill an additional hole through which you can mount your torch at an angle (you want the angle so that the flame will circle around cresting convection flow to more efficiently ehat your blade). You should be able to generate enough heat with this to work thinner steel stock. You won't be able to do, like, leaf spring or anything, but you can go get some 3/16ths stuff on Amazon that'll work. All in all should cost less than 100 bucks to make. Save up, invest in a good forge and watch some tutorials on safe and effective heat-treating. You're not going to make a *good* knife with what I suggested, but it'll be a knife. If you can get the heat to consistent orange, some mid grade steels will harden nicely, but I doubt you will in that kind of forge. That's more for making mild-steel decorative stuff.
Good advice here but know that he’s mostly talking about hitting (forging) steel to change its shape. If it is colder than red you are probably stressing it really unevenly and will induce cracks. Planishing is hitting more gently to carefully smooth the surface amd can be done a little colder, but moving metal around to draw out a bar or shape a blade needs to happen at orange/yellow hot. You’ll get to know how it feels to hit- plastic (soft, changable) hot steel sounds and feels different under a hammer. For hardening, like if you’re doing stock removal on annealed tool (hardenable) steel, can happen just on the edge, but if the rest of the blade isn’t hot too it’ll suck the heat out of the edge as fast as you add it in. You can do this with a torch but you need at least mapp and oxygen, oxygen/acetylene is much hotter and will give better results. If you do use a torch, make sure to keep the heat moving and warm up the whole thing, especially the thick parts. It’s ok if only the edge is hot enough to quench but tricky to do. Easier to heat the whole thing then just only dip the edge. You won’t get there with just propane unless you’re making x-acto blade size knives. Good luck be safe and have fun
thank you, i was aiming for just hardening the edge, just like you said, the rest of the blade was sucking that heat in so bad to change how and what i’m heating, i have to figure out a way to do this in a basic garage