Kreg Whitehead

I just went simple ...old propane bottle....2 burners.....straight down flame....no ribbon burners...blowers ect. Now that I have 20 /20 hindsight vision my front burner will get moved and inch or 2 fwd when I re do it Mine is all wool and cement....but the floor is pretty much flat. I initially kinda kicked myself for not doing the angle burner dealio to try to avoid hot spots. Having said that I just work with/around them. The way blades are shaped and beveled ect......they arent going to heat up evenly even in a perfect environment. Soooooo if you dont have a hot spot.....how do you deal with that? Its an honest question and just throwing it out there......I kinda like my hot spot(s). Edit....my forge will hit forging temps no problem. I melted part of one of the bells on my burner off first time I tried to weld something.

Just a heads up in case its your first bucket of parks 50. The instructions say to keep it covered when you arent using it. They werent joking around....that stuff will evaporate like water. You might be fine in a 2 gallon container. I was going to suggest to have a wet towel present when you quench to snuff out the fire. I had to do that more times than not in my one gallon quench tank.

I am no expert on anything....but what did ya quench it in. I have never done the 4800 but I felt like my 1095 in canola was only getting me halfway there....and quit buying it.

I ground several blades on an innexpensive 2x 42 in the 2 hundo range. It did everything my 2x 72 does just not as fast. I have been looking at kits that just need to be welded in the 600 range. They incude everything but the wheels,motor,and controller at that price. Off memory my grizzly was 700 ish. It has done the job....but tracking ...for me at least has been a battle. At the moment I am grinding blades with it...the belt is hanging over bottom wheel 3/8" or so to the left....and off the side of the top wheel about that to the right, and I had to frankenstien my platten about 3/8' to the left. I have gone through 2 switches.....its on its last leg. lol

One last question. Would this stuff be a good candidate for wootz if I ever get around to trying that??

I dont do many hidden tang knives. I took a tip from someone on here for my last one. I made the hole oversized a bit. Bought some 2 part epoxy putty to snug up the fit. Then used some regular epoxy and a pin to finish it off.

I use a grinding jig....but ya kind of need a work rest for that. Mine is just a piece of 2x2 angle iron and a vice grip. Even with a jig I struggled for a while....and still have to make constant adjustments. For a while I would use the jig and have to to go back to my file jig to straighten mistakes out. Alot of the ol timers knock on using a jig.....to me tool is a tool. At the end if the day it doesnt itself make it a better or worse blade.

Ahhhh.....bummer. Thanks for the info.

Some of you may remember a few months back I bought a wagon tire hoping for some wrought. All I had at the time was some muratic acid and I wasnt really seeing what looked like wrought to me. Fast fwd to now I had recently bought some ferric for a pair of w2 blades and thought I would give it another go. This is after practically an hour in the ferric and zilch. Soooooo I started thinking......wouldnt I need to heat treat/quenck this to see anything? My blades wont etch dark where they didnt harden. About a year ago I forged some cable and used it as scales on a dagger hoping to get a cable looking damascus etch on em and zero....also didnt heat treat.

I dont want to hi jack this.....but every time I hear about people using fish hooks my brain says arent they stainless steel? I would THINK that what fish hooks would be made of. Would that not be an issue?? Edit.....according to my quick google search it said most fish hooks are made of high carbon steel, steel alloyed with vandium, or stainless. I guess its a bit like mystery metal.

Thats really kewl. I have wanted to try a stainless san mai.....but I only have one successful san mai under my belt with non stainless materials. I have read stainless is real hard.....does the nickel help with the weld process....or is it purely cosmetic??

Thanks guys....I am gonna grab a piece today for a change of pace. Think they had some 1084 too. The aks websight says something like the cyro may help....or something along those lines. I am skeptically optimistic about my new redneck cyro plan...even if it only is going to slightly help. I found a machine shop that will test rc for 10 bucks. I wanna take him one of my w2 blades...the a2...and a 1084 Gonna edit a pic or 2 in from the w2 blade I started 2 days ago.

From what I think I understand.....the cyro is more important of a step to some steels than others....like aeb-l being one of the ones its not super critical. I have researched the liquid nitrogen deal. I dont think I would use enough ...fast enough for it to be feasable, And have heard its not all that easy to get even with the proper container. I will check it out. If/when I do one it will be tested for hardness,,,

I dont recall seeing anything brought up around here before on it since I have been here, Main reason I ask is the metal supermarket near ish my work stocks it and some 1095. A quick google said something about it being easy to grind and sharpen after hardening....and polishes well. Mentioned cyro too. Not sure if you can fake that with the freezer deal. I havent had the luck I wanted with my dry ice slurry in the past. I think my next home grown attempt there is going to combine the freezer.....and a container with rubbing alcohol and dry ice. And for the record I would be using my knife oven....not the forge.

This blade was ground before the quench...a little. Edge was probably a little thicker than a dime. The top etched pics are the first etch after the final grind. The broken blade is another blade. The bottom pics show the blade after I finished getting the edge I wanted with a pretty smoked 24 grit. From there before the etch it went through a 100 grit ceramic,then an a300 trizac,a100, a45,then a fine scotchbrite belt. I have wondered about grinding through the hamon. This is a piece of .187 stock.....not sure how many mm that is. I heat treated another one last night that survived and appears to have a nice hamon. This one I did not grind at all and did very minimal profiling on the handle. I try not to tie too much time up because breaking about 1 outta 3 is pretty standard for me. As far as the normalization I think the grain in the broken one speaks for itself. I dont have any better/closer pics on me but will gladly put some up tomorrow if anyone wants to see them