They are a higher carbon steel but I dont know the range either. I am very interested in what you come up with on your heat treat, I have a pile of them upstairs in the garage just doing nothing.:innocent:Quote:
Originally Posted by canid
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They are a higher carbon steel but I dont know the range either. I am very interested in what you come up with on your heat treat, I have a pile of them upstairs in the garage just doing nothing.:innocent:Quote:
Originally Posted by canid
if they turn out to be something comparable to 1060, they'll make good practice for differential tempering and playin' with clay :D
Having cut some scrap bed rail...I'd say your right it isn't A36...something with a little more carbon maybe....
definitely more carbon then mild steel. it's almost certainly as rolled, it's only slightly hard, so it seems to be that would probably make it hot rolled.
in it's state, i get some pretty impressive single splitting of the spall when i grind it. as far as i know, that indicates a pretty good carbon content.
to show you what i mean; here's a comparison:
here is a known mild steel nail:
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...ng/nail-01.jpg
and here is the bed rail, as is:
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...bedrail-01.jpg
when i do the heat treat, i'll do an extra piece to show one of the bed rail after normalizing, and then after hardening.
it hardens well in oil [the file wouldn't cut it for removing the scale on the bevel, and i had to use a sanding block]. i'm charging up the camera batteries now. i forgot to do it last night.
post heat treat:
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/img_0268.jpg
and after cleanup:
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/img_0270.jpg
i'm also getting started on the scales today. i think i've got a friend comming by today to see about hand fitment, so this knife might be sold.
sharpening and polishing a bevel this hard is an enourmous PITA. the guy intends to cut rope with it though, so it's either this, or he'll be dressing it every 3 cuts.
Very nicely done.
next one is shaping up to be a clip point version of the same knife:
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...d/img_0274.jpg
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...on-03-2010.jpg
and the next crop, also slight modifications to the template used for the last one:
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...ks-various.jpg
It looks like you have developed your own unique style! I like the handle shape, nice work!
Nice!!! You have quite the assortment of blades!!
Looks like you should be about ready to set up a table at the next knife show.
not yet, but maybe in a year or two [if i go on spending half of my time working on them, as i have been].
i think that when i can round up a decent part time job [walmart looks like they blew me off], i can put a little more cash into the workshop, and will be able to do a good many things better or more efficiently.
between this and the bows, i can't wait to have a steadier flow of resources.
i've got a couple of blades which will be ready for the heat treat tomorrow, so i thought i'd try something new to me.
i'm going to try for my first differential temper.
i excavated some more subsoil, and crumbled it well. i sifted it out through a fine sieve to remove most of the humic matter, and filled a mason jar 4/5 full. i added water until all the air in the soil was displaces, and skimmed off everything that floated, to remove most of the rest of the humus.
i placed the lid on the jar, and shook it well for about 5 min, then sat it down to settle. i let it settle for half an hour, then slowly poured off most of the water, along with the little remainder of organic material. i gave it another brisk shake, and set it back down again to settle, this time until the water was pretty much clear.
the sand and clay stratafied, with the vast majority of the coarser sand and the fine iron and other dense components settling out first, to the very bottom. next, most of the fine sand, and almost all the rest of the coarse stuff. next, the remainder of the fine sand/silt, along with much of the inorganic clay. lastly, the remainder of the inorganic clay, along with the very finest of the organic material, which is very hard to get rid of by this method. this 'organic muck' is the stuff often confused with real clay, and for our purposes, i believe it is fine.
i carefully poured the water, and the top layer of clay which readily returned to suspension onto a flat surface [in this case, the bottom half of a pizza box], letting the excess water run out.
being greedy [trying to recover as much of the clay as possible, i reached my hand into the jar to scoop out much of the clay which did not go back into suspension in the water. this is where the bulk of the clay ends up, and i didn't want to go through a second separatory process. as a result, i believe i ended up with a lot of the fine sand still in my clay.
i scooped out the bbq grill, and dumped out the ash from the forge, and passed these through the fine sieve, over the clay mixture, mixing it in afterward.
to thicken this up, and add still more plastic material to the mix, i also added some fine wood dust from behind my sander. this doubtless contained a lot of fine steel dust as well.
i mixed these in well, and the wood dust turned out to be coarser than i had supposed. next time i will sift only the very finest of this material out as well.
with the mix stiffer and gritter than i has hoped, i figured i'd give it a shot anyway. i spread it on the blade with a piece of bamboo [thicker than i should have], and began to run a fine splinter of wood over the bevel, scooping off the excess clay mixture. i next made a second pass, taking quasi-regular 'dips' to remove extra clay from small parts of the side of the blade further than the line of the bevel. this did not work well wtih the material being as i said, too stiff. i managed to get the job done, with a poor looking line, and way too thick a layer of clay on the blade.
in between sides, i used my heat gun to speed the drying process, so my goop didn't fall off, but so i didn't have to wait long. even with such rapid partial drying there is no sign of cracking.
this is set by to dry overnight, after which i will give it a full drying, again with the heat gun, and it will be heat treated tomorrow if all turns out well.
because it turned out so thick, just after it is dry, i am going to carefully remove much of the thickness by gentle sanding. i figure if the clay flakes off during this procedure, it probably would have flaked off during firing or quenching.
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/img_0279.jpg
i have no idea how reasonable my choice and proportions of components in the mixture are, but i have heard of each of them being used, unless i'm mistaken, and they should keep it nice and plastic, plenty 'sticky' and insulative enough.
wish me luck, and don't hesitate to add any recommendations if you will.
heat treat today:
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/before-1.jpg
and out of the quench, wtih the bevels cleaned up:
http://i602.photobucket.com/albums/t...ives/after.jpg
i got a good head start on cleaning the little one up, because i'm going crazy waiting to see of a hamon was produced.
i managed to sand it down to a reasonable thickness, and smoothe out the fine cracks with my finger and a few drops of water. i believe there was far too much combustable material [wood dust and carbon rich ash], as it was soft and punky when it came out of the forge, and mostly crumbled away during immersion.
i have only drawn the temper on the small one. the other two will be done shortly; i wanted to play around with tempering by heat-gun.
i've spent the last hour working the small blade on the stones, and i do think i begin to see slight hints of a hamon developing; it's so far just faint suggestions of what look like the ashi. the steel is not nearly smooth enough yet to be sure.
i'm going to polish it to 1500grit paper, and rub on some mild vinegar after that.
what i'll do next time is mix the clay mixture i already have 50/50 with fresh clay. it should be the right consistency at a much lower water content that way anyway, and should stick better.