Alan Longmire

A very very good deal indeed.

The 180 is the weight in pounds, and the serial number dates it to 1941-1943. That's a nice one, it's in great shape!

The curse of the old thread. If the photos were uploaded directly to the forum, they're still here. If they were linked, usually they're gone. You can always try the Internet Archive wayback machine, https://archive.org/web/ . The forum address changed in 2010, posts prior to that will be on www.dfoggknives.com.

Just a cooling, but in water. It won't harden anything, but it can still warp it, so be careful.

You are correct about slow cooling giving a laminar anneal. The solution is don't slow cool. Just let it cool in still air. Once it's below around 500 F you can even quench it. A subcritical anneal is that easy.

Geoff said it best! The patination will pull it all together, I think. I bet I couldn't see the imperfections with a #5 Optivisor, but the maker knows every one. Nice!

You've really come a long way since your first knives! I'm with Alex, there's nothing critical to say about that one. Well done, especially that swept plunge! Those are tough to finish out.

Welcome aboard! You are correct, it's a standard English anvil from the Black Country west of Birmingham, and dates between about 1850 and 1880 based on the length of the horn and the shape of the feet. The actual maker could be any one of the dozens of makers in that region, except for Peter Wright. They used a different foot shape. Pity about the weld beads on the face, but it happens.

Yep, that will happen.

Yeah, that's electrolysis. I've never tried it with damascus, but it might work. Hook the steel to be etched to the negative current, make the tank it's in the positive electrode, and it will etch evenly. Might not get the result you want, but I don't know. Try it and see!

Sounds like you need to re-read and re-watch. For plain carbon and low-alloy steels you have forged, you do not need to anneal, just normalize a couple of times after forging, and maybe once after grinding just prior to the quench. If you do a full spheroidized anneal, yes, do your normalizations/thermal cycling afterwards. Why do you want a lamellar anneal? With 5160 especially that leads to broken drills, chipped file teeth, and difficult grinding, as the lamellae involved are sheets of carbides that are harder than steel. The point of a spheroidizing anneal is to segregate

The big thing is lots of normalizing.

Just use more sealant and it'll be fine.

You should see mine, but you can't. Too much stuff on it!

Very nice indeed!