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I am a newbe to forging. Up until know I have been using stock rolled/machined steel ( O 1) by stock removal and quenched in used Olive oil. I use a temperature controlled kiln. These are specialty knives for wood carving usually 1/16 to 1/8 inch thick. Now I am teaching myself forging. I have no experienced blacksmiths close that I can learn from. I bought a gas forge and an anvil. Steel is used steel from a flea market. Files, saws, etc. I intend to go on making full size knives. My questions are: what oil do I use for quenching? Is Olive oil OK? If not, automotive oil? Buy new oil meant for quenching? Does quenching oil go bad? HELP. Lanny S. (Mac) McLaughlin

I came across some pretty cool info (I love getting new books) and wanted to share some of the highlights with you all. I did a search and couldn't find a single thread with a ton of quenchant specs so I figured it would be cool to start one where we could all just accumulate our various data. I'm thinking cooling rates, flash points, speed comparisons for different manufacturers, etc. Here is the cool stuff I wanted to start with. (I take no responsibility for the units here, they can in C and I wasn't going to re-create them just to get F.) As you can see, it looks like with water, your temperature is hugely important, but with oil, not so much. Choosing the right oil has a much larger effect than the oil temperature. Personally I'm hoping someone with a cooling curves for canola oil and engine oil (because it is asked about a lot due to the ease of access) can add them here too.

I've seen different posts where people quench their blades in peanut oil, canola oil, or various other oils onions, or brine. In my shop, I have 8 gallons of used motor oil. I've used to to harden several blades and a few tools and it works, other than the black scale it leaves behind. My question is: Does the type of oil matter? Is vegetable oil versus motor oil any better or worse? Why do we warm the oil up first? If the idea is to cool the steel, wouldn't we want cooler oil? And if a man was to make his own brine, what ratio of water to salt would he need? And would iodized or water softener salt work?

Hey Y'all I had a thought; does quenching a piece in oil prevent as much firescale, or is all the scale formed in the forge, not the quench? Also, does heating a piece in a clay sleeve prevent scale from forming? Thanks and Cheers!

To preface i want it known that yes i am aware of parks 50 being the ideal quenchent for simple steels however im trying to get a few knives done before next week as they are for a school project so im on a time constraint as far as getting a batch of parks 50 and also my budget will not allow that at the moment. So i am moving my attention towards oils available in grocery stores i know canola oil is a favorite among many however next to a bottle of canola i noticed a bottle of this grape seed oil. i sloshed both around to see how they compare in terms of viscosity and it appears that grape seed oil is much thiner and was close to what i remember parks looking like (i had a 5 gal thing of it but it was very sadly tossed in a move still calling myself stupid for that one but oh well to late now) Looking on the back of the bottle it said that it was ok to work with up to 425 degrees which is fairly close to the working range of canola. Would grapeseed oil work better than canola as it is a thinner liquid? my thinking is that thinner fluids allow for a faster extraction of heat because the molecules are much more free to move around but that might be complete bs.