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Appreciation post: I thought the old guy at the Ohio swap meet was full of it about quench speed
A guy named Dale at a swap meet in Canton kept telling me to stop dunking my 1084 in warm oil and just go fast into room temp. I nodded along for two visits and ignored him. Then I tried it on a batch of 6 knives and every single one came out harder than anything I had done in 3 months of fiddling with temps. I still do not fully get why it works, but I have not gone back. Anyone else had an old timer hand them a tip that sounded wrong until you actually ran it?
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leow9018d ago
Disagree with the blanket rule here. Fast into room temp oil works great for 1084 because it is a shallow hardening steel and you want to beat the pearlite nose, but run that same thing on 5160 or a big thick 1095 blade and you will get warps and cracks. Dale gave you a tip that fit your steel and your section size. I ran 1084 in warm oil for years and got 62 to 64 on the as quenched file test with no trouble, so the warm oil was not your problem. Your problem was probably that you were moving too slow from the forge to the quench and the warm oil just made it worse. Fix the speed first, then mess with oil temp.
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