If you'd like, I can deck it flat on the mill for you. This stuff files like butter when it's annealed. Hardened in water, it'll push up to about a 65Rc, the file skates off. Flat is not a problem here.
Charly
Thanks Charley, I'm on my second try doing my own forge welded material. The first billet wound up with one nasty cold shut running through it. I'm doing it a bit different this time. Started with a 25 layer stack of 1095,
15N20 and L6 thin stuff. Got it welded and drawn on Sunday. I'm planning to square it and clean it up real good before I cut and reweld a couple more times. I made a couple bad mistakes the first time but I think this one is going to work nicely. I just need to clean and surface the welded faces in between folds. Part of the problem last time was the forge rig that I used while hotter than my usual rig, needs careful monitoring of the fuel mixture. It went lean on the fuel that first time and oxidized the crap out of the steel and I didn't catch on in the excitement of the moment. Fun stuff.GA
I dont know what kind of "rig" your wirecoms from, but all wire rope used in the marine industry and as far as I know in the logging industry is 1080, and is called plough shear steel, or improved plough shear steel which is an alloy, which I am not sure of. Rope core is also usable as the core just burns out. Doug . I figure at least 1080 from the spark. I
Oil rig, my bad. I live in the remains of the Oil Patch, cable is everywhere. Usually, I find great huge wads of the stuff out in fields. The farmers are usually glad to be rid of it, so I periodically go scrounging with the cutting torch. Whatever it is, ir welds nicely, works easily, hardens right up, and is damn tough. No doubt it's really strong in tensile, think about how much five miles of thickwall 4" pipe weighs, hanging on the string in the hole.
Charly
doug roberts wrote:
Unless specified otherwise for certain applications, it's all simple
10xx series carbon steel.In the Oil Patch it's most likely Extra Improved Plow Steel or Extra Extra IPS because of the lengths used and the abrasive dirt.
Carbon usually runs from about 80 points in plain Improved to ~95 points in XXIPS. The stuff has tensile strength from 260,000 psi for plain IPS and to 340,000 psi for XXIPS. It's tough alright! :)
Good steel and it makes pretty blades when welded up.
I have, but it's too ackward. I just go by color. I've never been able to see the "shadow" that everyone talks about, but my stuff seems to come out just fine.
I quench in peanut oil. Whenever I hear of friends deep frying a turkey I try and get the oil. I fried my own this year for Thanksgiving so I have a fresh 3 gallons.
I'm near Providence, RI.
I've done that with my peanut oil. Peanut oil smokes at about 450F and catches fire around 600F. I don't know the exact number, but it has worked for springs.
I just looked up an MSDS of peanut oil:
How about your methods?
Eide in RI :)
If you can't see the shadow, you can't see the shadow. BTDT too.
I guess the trick is to heat it up as slow as you can?
I recently went down from two 3/4" to two 1/2" propane flames, just screwed in a couple 1/2" reducer bushings (with their own screens).
I believe that's improved my heat treating.
For sure that's got to smell better than my "real" quenching oil. :) The toaster oven is now for tempering-only since it smells funny.
Cool, thanks. :)
"Gadsden Purchase boy" here. ;) Even went to work for the Sufferin Pacific RR. :)
Using peanut oil wouldn't be such a problem as what I was picturing. I believe they even mention (used?) motor oil.
Yeah. All we need to know is what temperature the liquid gets to while the surface of the oil is burning. The oil's boiling point would prob'ly do it.
"arrest point method" is a phrase I started. :)
I thought "look for the shadow" was mine too but later re-read Boye and found a reference to "a shadowy look". :/
Since my knife making is -all about- edge holding, I'm after the hardest steel I can get away with.
A cold treatment directly from the quench tank (careful not to let the steel's temperature stop going down). A measly -5F in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator will make a whopping difference in hardness... "with no change in toughness" -ASM
1095 goes from filable to absolutley un-filable.1095 blade clamped in the vise, up-close, a new Nicholson file with enough pressure to flatten all the teeth that slide over the knife blade's corner. Not a test I want to repeat often. ;)
Taps, files and hacksaw blade teeth are that way, why not knives? :)
---------------------- My latest recipe:
I use the arrest point method watching for the shadow to form in the center areas and thicker sections,
quench in quenching oil as soon as the color evens-out, (a helper wipes it off and takes it to the freezer while I heat the next piece, when I got a helper;)
after a 1/2 hour in the freezer for the last piece, wash off the oil with soap and water and put in an extra-wide junk aluminum skillet and boil them for 1/2 hour then, put them back into the freezer for 1/2 hour (or hours if needs be)
then draw in a toaster oven for an hour at... 325-335F for 1095 340-350F for O1 275-285F for 8670-M (used circular saw blade steel)
The tempering temperatures are at the peak of each steel's tortional impact test maximums.
--------------------
Springs are placed in the freezer, washed and boiled with the blades, no reason to handle them separately before I'm ready to sand and temper them. The springs are sanded white and drawn on the electric stove (in the dark, drawn to about 650F) re-sand and repeat the ~650F draw.
No real reason to cold treat springs because the retained austenite transforms to secondary martensite or secondary bainite when heated above 425F anyway.
With a cold treatment my parts tested...
1095 drawn at 325-335F tested 66+hrc. 01 tested at 64+hrc. 8670-M tested at 66hrc. 1095 springs were 46-48hrc. O1 springs were 50-52hrc.Eide, are you sorry you asked about my methods? ;)
"if you talk to someone that's not into your hobby, and you don't sound completely whacko to them, then you're not into your hobby very far" ;)
Had a non-railroader neighbor whose hobby was railroading. He sounded completely whacko to me at the time. :)
Alvin in AZ ps- had a subsitute chemistry teacher named Eide once, last class that day, he spent a couple hours with me, filling the board with equations, figuring out the gas-pressure exerted inside a 5 gallon bucket by my firecracker, best case senario = 800 atmoshperes :) we backed it down and figured ~500 atmospheres, later it turned out, the 500 we settled on, is about the same as the inside of a 30-06 cartridge :) pps- guess "how high" the can would go (when placed upside-down over that size of firecracker ;) ppps- anyone? ;)
What did the can weigh? How much area did the 'front' present to the wind? Was there any taper in the sides of the can, if so, how much and in what direction, diverging or converging? I'll get out my high speed aerodynamics book...
Charly
In an "instant" there was at least 500 calculated atmoshperes of pressure inside an ordinary steel 5 gallon bucket (that's about the same as the chamber pressure of a 30-06 cartridge (50,000 c.u.p.) (most of that is from superheated air) the way I remember it, the bucket still had its metal handle and plastic handle cover, it was a nice, like-new, freshly emptied 5 gallon bucket (black roof coating).
The firecracker was about 3" in diameter and 4" long, hard cardboard tube with 1/2" walls and 1/2" plywood end plugs glued in place with Elmer's. ;)
That was the late 60's and up'til then 5 times as big of a firecracker as I'd ever made. The smaller ones are more fun (no kidding on that) and was almost 20 years later before I made one anywhere near that big and it was double that size. Again it's been another 20 years and don't see any good reason to ever make anything bigger than the "best ones" (they have about a 1" long 1" diameter powder chamber).
I'll quit messing with you... ;)
A firecracker with a 1x1 powder chamber is about 1+1/2" in diameter and 3" long and everytime I show someone new, I make them guess "how do you think it'll go" (5 gallon steel bucket) to get them to work on a "picture" in their head. :)
Guesses have ranged from 3 feet to 60 feet and most in the 10 to 30 feet range. I'm not sure who's more correct the 3 feet or 60 feet since the 1"x1" chamber-size-firecracker blows the can to smitherenes. Pieces shower/filter down, some over 200 feet away.
"lot more energy in that stuff than you thought huh? :)" "Wanna live in the middle east? ;)" ...are my usual smart-ass comments... :/
Somehow a car bombing on the news takes on new meaning for them after that. As it should've all along, I guess?
When you switch from cardboard+wood as the casing to metal, you're switching from a firecracker to a bomb. With low explosives inside the casing, cardboard actually makes a better/stronger "bang" in my experience. The metal ones just aren't worth the risk especially considering they are basically a waste of powder compared to what can be done -much- safer with cardboard and wood and the same amount of powder.
Metal is too stretchy or something. You end up with mostly big hunks of metal. With the cardboard "when you work it out" and "get it right" you end up with "mouse nest" (cardboard fuzz).
Another favorite of everyone that sees it is, the "pressure cooker lid" it goes up 100 feet and then looks as if it gets another boost from another firecracker (because of expectations I figure). It goes-up-top-up and finally ;) when it gets as high as it'as going to go, flips over and starts-down-bottom-up (for a while).
It's hilarious! :)
"how high do you think it'll go?" is my favorite question while showing someone the object and the firecracker. :)
Anyway, "Mr Eide" stayed after class and helped me work out the pressure since that happened to be the chemistry class subject. :)
I showed Mr Eide a piece of the bucket the next day, it was less than 3/4sqi, it flittered down right in front of us, so was the first piece picked up and I saved it. :)
Not too long after that my dear brother and stepfather cleaned-out the shed, that little piece of bucket and a bunch of other really cool stuff, went to the dump, I had receits for most of my chemicals and some other stuff and made 'em pay me. They kicked and screamed but I told them "turn about is fair play :)" -"and I have a friggin pickup [you sorry bastards ;]"-
They paid. :)
Aaaa... sweet-high-school-memories huh? ;)
"Eide, as in, sodium chlro-IDE" was his introduction in class LOL :)
Eide in RI... bet you're related to him suppose? Mr Eide's son was a geologist I met him later in Bowie AZ and we talked about his (dead) dad.
Alvin in AZ
Good stories, sounds like you had some fun, as a kid I always dreamed of opening up my own fireworks shop.
Well, my family pronounces it like, "can I see your ID." Not too many of us Eides are related it seems. I know there is a town in Norway called Eide (ay-duh), and our family name was different when my Great Grandfather came to the States. We don't know why it was changed to Eide, but it could've been where he was from.
Wow, thanks for your process. I mostly use W1 and O1 because that's what I have a lot of. I'm not sure of all you were saying, but your knives are tough and not brittle? Do you thinks this process would work with the O1 and W1? (I mostly make woodworking tools and have the occasional need to make extra tough/hard tools for working with very tough/hard wood like Live Oak.)
Is this your process?: Quench, freeze, boil, freeze, temper. (with wiping/cleaning between.) Can you clarify what the boiling does?
(I saw after reading again that you state 340-350F for O1)
What shapes/thickness you got in W1? :)
Used non-carbide tipped circular saw blades are 8670-modified unless it's an Oldham and they are 1069. Not sure when they switched away from L6 to 8670-M. That's for me to learn yet. Some careful, future spark testing might be my only clue whether I've ever even had any "real L6" saw blades.
The edge is strong and for the most part will cut into things the way a tap cuts into metal to form threads. The knives I make aren't for everything, could be thought of, to be only good for one thing, cutting. :) That's the way I see them.
Yeah the peak for 1095 and W1 is 325-335F and the peak for O1 shifts to 350F. As you can see 25F can make a big difference.
L6 and 8670's peak is around 275F and starts dropping at 300F.
I don't know. :/ ...you experiment and tell me. :)
Thickness and edge angle and "who's doing what" are such big influences that, even if I did know anything about that at all, I wouldn't know where to start anyway. Sorry. :/
"I read a metallurgy book" -alvin
Not sure if it does anything other than clean off the quenching oil.;)
The idea is to "kick the retained austenite around" and get it to "un-stabilize" and transform into some more martensite.
The transformation is mostly while the steel is cooling so I'm giving it a chance to cool again by bringing it up to 210F and back down to -5F again. The raising of the temperature stabilizes some of the retained austenite tho. :/
Something you won't see very many places is the fact that high carbon steel like 1095 will actually get harder than "as quenched" when drawn at 210F for a 1/2 hour. It's a legitimate tempering draw that toughens the steel quite a bit from "as quenched" -and- it's harder both. No kidding on that. :) I wonder if they do files that way. :)
That extra hardness created by the 210F draw prob'ly doesn't survive as an effect after it's drawn above 265F and -for sure- doesn't survive (have a lasting effect) above 425F where the retained austenite transforms to secondary (temper created) bainite or secondary martensite anyway.
Theoretically and practically, the cold treatment's gain in hardness tho, lasts throughout the entire process right up to, say a 425F draw. The cold treatment makes a real change in the microstructure.
Anyway, all I can say is, try it and see how it turns out?
And then tell us? ;)
Alvin in AZ
Alvin,
Thanks for all of your feedback. I will definitely try your methods with my next batch of tools and let everyone know how they came out.
(I have W1 in round and square; 1/2", 3/4" and 1")
Eide ----- Original Message ----- From: snipped-for-privacy@XX.com Newsgroups: alt.crafts.blacksmithing,rec.knives Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 1:57 PM Subject: Re: New thread (newbie)
What shapes/thickness you got in W1? :)
Used non-carbide tipped circular saw blades are 8670-modified unless it's an Oldham and they are 1069. Not sure when they switched away from L6 to 8670-M. That's for me to learn yet. Some careful, future spark testing might be my only clue whether I've ever even had any "real L6" saw blades.
The edge is strong and for the most part will cut into things the way a tap cuts into metal to form threads. The knives I make aren't for everything, could be thought of, to be only good for one thing, cutting. :) That's the way I see them.
Yeah the peak for 1095 and W1 is 325-335F and the peak for O1 shifts to 350F. As you can see 25F can make a big difference.
L6 and 8670's peak is around 275F and starts dropping at 300F.
I don't know. :/ ...you experiment and tell me. :)
Thickness and edge angle and "who's doing what" are such big influences that, even if I did know anything about that at all, I wouldn't know where to start anyway. Sorry. :/
"I read a metallurgy book" -alvin
Not sure if it does anything other than clean off the quenching oil.;)
The idea is to "kick the retained austenite around" and get it to "un-stabilize" and transform into some more martensite.
The transformation is mostly while the steel is cooling so I'm giving it a chance to cool again by bringing it up to 210F and back down to -5F again. The raising of the temperature stabilizes some of the retained austenite tho. :/
Something you won't see very many places is the fact that high carbon steel like 1095 will actually get harder than "as quenched" when drawn at 210F for a 1/2 hour. It's a legitimate tempering draw that toughens the steel quite a bit from "as quenched" -and- it's harder both. No kidding on that. :) I wonder if they do files that way. :)
That extra hardness created by the 210F draw prob'ly doesn't survive as an effect after it's drawn above 265F and -for sure- doesn't survive (have a lasting effect) above 425F where the retained austenite transforms to secondary (temper created) bainite or secondary martensite anyway.
Theoretically and practically, the cold treatment's gain in hardness tho, lasts throughout the entire process right up to, say a 425F draw. The cold treatment makes a real change in the microstructure.
Anyway, all I can say is, try it and see how it turns out?
And then tell us? ;)
Alvin in AZ
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