After much pain and anguish forging (hot and cold), annealing, filing and
sanding a nice 12" blade blank in 1090 (former beefy nail set), I've heat
treated it (all except the tang end is file hard) and it's currently in the
oven at 350 or 400 for the next hour. But it's got two good kinks in the
previously perfect straightness. And that'll make sharpening with a flat
stone annoying ... not to mention making it look stupid overall.
Suggestions?

Tim

--
"I have misplaced my pants." - Homer Simpson | Electronics,
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --+ Metalcasting
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You need to do the final work on the hardened blade rather than the soft
state.

--
Bob May
Losing weight is easy! If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less.
Works every time it is tried!

In article , Tim Williams
wrote:

After much pain and anguish forging (hot and cold), annealing, filing and
sanding a nice 12" blade blank in 1090 (former beefy nail set), I've heat
treated it (all except the tang end is file hard) and it's currently in the
oven at 350 or 400 for the next hour. But it's got two good kinks in the
previously perfect straightness. And that'll make sharpening with a flat
stone annoying ... not to mention making it look stupid overall.
Suggestions?

Tim


Reheat it and straighten it while hot.
Then, heat it up again and bury in powdered lime or vermiculite.
Leave it for at least 4 hours.

This is called Annealing and will remove any stresses in the blade from
the forging process.

Clean up the blade.
Then re-harden it, this time making sure not to have an uneven heat on
either side of the blade before you quench.

Tempering in the oven is fine.

On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 15:03:58 -0600, "Tim Williams" wrote:
After much pain and anguish forging (hot and cold), annealing, filing and
sanding a nice 12" blade blank in 1090 (former beefy nail set), I've heat
treated it (all except the tang end is file hard) and it's currently in the
oven at 350 or 400 for the next hour. But it's got two good kinks in the
previously perfect straightness. And that'll make sharpening with a flat
stone annoying ... not to mention making it look stupid overall.
Suggestions?

Quenching high carbon steel without warping it is an art.
You can't just chunk the blade into the quench any old
way. The exact way you'd do it depends on the particular
blade shape, thickness, and size, but for most of the
blades I've made, I get best results by *slicing* it into
the coolant edge first, then vigorously moving it around
once it is submerged.

I doubt you'll be able to remove the warp in hardened
1090 by cold working. I suspect you're going to have
to anneal it, straighten it, and reheat treat it.

Gary

Reheat it and straighten it while hot.
Then, heat it up again and bury in powdered lime or vermiculite.
Leave it for at least 4 hours.

This is called Annealing and will remove any stresses in the blade from
the forging process.

Vermiculite? Lime? We don't use no stinkin' vermicu...whatever. Round
these parts we wrap it in rolled up panther hide.

Bob Swinney

"Ernie Leimkuhler" wrote in message
...
In article , Tim Williams
wrote:

After much pain and anguish forging (hot and cold), annealing, filing
and
sanding a nice 12" blade blank in 1090 (former beefy nail set), I've
heat
treated it (all except the tang end is file hard) and it's currently in
the
oven at 350 or 400 for the next hour. But it's got two good kinks in
the
previously perfect straightness. And that'll make sharpening with a
flat
stone annoying ... not to mention making it look stupid overall.
Suggestions?

Tim



Clean up the blade.
Then re-harden it, this time making sure not to have an uneven heat on
either side of the blade before you quench.

Tempering in the oven is fine.

In article ,
Gary Coffman wrote:

[...]

I doubt you'll be able to remove the warp in hardened
1090 by cold working. I suspect you're going to have
to anneal it, straighten it, and reheat treat it.

Can you "wear out" a piece of metal by repeatedly heat treating it,
annealing it, heat treating it, and so on? Or is it something that's
yes for some metals, no for others?

--
B.B. --I am not a goat! thegoat4 at airmail.net
Fire the stupid--Vote.

"Ernie Leimkuhler" wrote in message
...
Reheat it and straighten it while hot.
Then, heat it up again and bury in powdered lime or vermiculite.
Leave it for at least 4 hours.

This is called Annealing and will remove any stresses in the blade from
the forging process.

During forging, all stresses are inherently removed because the metal is
always above annealing temperature, so this is N/A as far as I know. I have
to to finishing work (aside from the polishing) in an annealed state because
we don't seem to have a grinder. . .

Then re-harden it, this time making sure not to have an uneven heat on
either side of the blade before you quench.

Um, not an issue.. there's not going to be more than 50 degrees across the
thickness. (Note the warp is like bending the thickness. Not like an arc'd
Samurai sword (called ???).)

The point is moot now since I tried tapping it between three blocks of wood,
breaking it.. I'll have to go forge weld it somehow, or otherwise make a new
one...sigh...

Tim

--
"I have misplaced my pants." - Homer Simpson | Electronics,
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --+ Metalcasting
and Games: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms

On Sat, 06 Mar 2004 20:06:59 -0600, "B.B." u wrote:
In article ,
Gary Coffman wrote:
I doubt you'll be able to remove the warp in hardened
1090 by cold working. I suspect you're going to have
to anneal it, straighten it, and reheat treat it.

Can you "wear out" a piece of metal by repeatedly heat treating it,
annealing it, heat treating it, and so on? Or is it something that's
yes for some metals, no for others?

You're going to lose some of the surface to scale every time you
heat it, unless you have a controlled atmosphere furnace. You
have to allow for that when you choose the stock.

If you *overheat* steel, ie bring it to a white heat, you'll burn some
of the carbon out of it, as well as produce a lot more scale. That's
not an issue at normal forging and heat treating temperatures.

Also, if you hold steel above the critical temperature too long,
you'll get grain growth, which weakens it. This can be corrected
by annealing and reheat treating.

Intricate decorative pieces may have 50 or more "heats" involved
in producing them. The metal doesn't "wear out", though as I noted
there will be some losses to scale formation with each heat.

Gary

"Gary Coffman" wrote in message
...
Intricate decorative pieces may have 50 or more "heats" involved
in producing them. The metal doesn't "wear out", though as I noted
there will be some losses to scale formation with each heat.

With my slow going I've probably heated a lot more times than that... and
the surface still spark tests 1080/1090 in carbon content. Not even 1040/60
range anywhere. So there's not really much loss at all.

Tim

--
"I have misplaced my pants." - Homer Simpson | Electronics,
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --+ Metalcasting
and Games: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms

On Sun, 7 Mar 2004 12:15:09 -0600, "Tim Williams" wrote:
"Gary Coffman" wrote in message
.. .
Intricate decorative pieces may have 50 or more "heats" involved
in producing them. The metal doesn't "wear out", though as I noted
there will be some losses to scale formation with each heat.

With my slow going I've probably heated a lot more times than that... and
the surface still spark tests 1080/1090 in carbon content. Not even 1040/60
range anywhere. So there's not really much loss at all.

But what's the difference in the weight? You lose some metal to
scale with each heat. That does mount up over many heats.

Gary

"Gary Coffman" wrote in message
...
But what's the difference in the weight? You lose some metal to
scale with each heat. That does mount up over many heats.

All the metal I removed finishing it piles up too. I collected about half
the filings I made and there's gotta be 5 or 10 grams there. The blade
weighs something like 80 grams, I forget... All I know is, long as I'm
forging, I ain't stopping and letting that thing cool down just to check its
weight within a half a gram :^)

Tim

--
"I have misplaced my pants." - Homer Simpson | Electronics,
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --+ Metalcasting
and Games: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms