Craftsmanship > Hawks and Knives

Need help hardening/tempering a few knives

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scrimman:
Well, I figure if the answer is to be found it'll be on these boards.
Well, the bug hit me, I made a few blades, and I don't have a way to harden them so that they'll be useful.
Any of y'all know of someone that'll harden and temper a knife blade?  I've got two reworked Olsen knives and a rather large Damascus blade.

Thanks in advance

LRB:
Your first step would be to find out exactly what steel these are. In heat treating, one method does not fit all. If the damascus is an India import, you will be lucky if it hardens at all.

rickevans:
Scrim, by "re-worked" what do you mean? How do you know (or what makes you think) they need to be re-heat treated?

Rick

scrimman:
Thanks y'all for the replys
The Olsen blades used to be hardened blade blanks that were uniformly 3/16ths or so think.  I annealed them in a mesquite wood fire to make them soft enough to file and shape, but I can could tell that the annealing job was kind of slap-dash; too many hard spots for my liking.  Now that they actually resemble knives and not knife shaped slabs of metal I'm trying to re-harden them evenly so that they're useful and not just decorative.  Sadly, I can't find any info whatsoever on what kind of steel Olsen used for their products.  
The Damascus steel, however, I know lots about.  The billet I bought off of Craig Barr, and it's 5160, 1018, and 15n20 with a core of 1018 running up the middle of it.  That's the one that bothers me the most because it's a long blade (just shy of 10") and I can't think of a way I can heat it uniformly to make sure I get a good knife out of the deal.
Wyo, thanks, I'll contact him and see what he says.

Sean

pathfinder:
Bookie from Toad Hall shows a method of hardening and annealing that I've tried and it seams to work. I'm no scientist or engineer and have no way to test the results except by using the end result of my efforts.
After getting the blade hotter than the dickens[official term!] in a charcoal fire that I supplement with a blow tube, I quench it in a pan of water. I then place the blade in a pan of used motor oil,heat it with a propane torch till it catches fire, let it burn then cool,clean the blade and I have a blade that holds a good edge for some time.
I use the stock removal method to make my knifes and this system works for me.

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