Quenching oil for o1 tool steel

Back when I was making knives, I quenched O1 in olive oil, the cheapest gallon size I could buy. The advantage is that it smells like baking oatmeal cookies. Learned that from Bob Loveless. I quenched O1 in water by mistake once. The blade cracked in a dozen places. Never tried it again. I agree with gilgaron to start out with simply because it uses water to quench and the 2 steels have nearly identical properties once finished.

I would wood, for aperitif? Does he mean plunge it down once for a quick quench and then move to the oven, or plunge it until it cools considerably, below degrees? Thanks and Happy New Year. Also, I believe a2 is not as friendly for DIY hardening. Cool — looking forward to the Roubo-based planes article.

Please help me understand the advantages of heat treating O1 steel vs buying the harder A2 steel. Buying A2 steel would give you a harder edge without the risk of warping the tool. Better edge durability vs. Or is this article aimed at folks who already own O1 tools?

By Megan Fitzpatrick. In Shop Blog , Woodworking Blogs. So do you put the bevel and any shaping on the steel before you heat treat? IrritableBadger January 17, NuritheTurk January 9, This process works well for spring steels too like en47 or old car springs. Heh heh, I should have pointed out that's just the technique I use and it works for me. I've got the most basic set-up going and figured if you were asking about this on a bushcraft site you'd be doing it at a basic level as well.

I use a bbq and hair dryer to heat the blade, check it's non magnetic with a big speaker magnet and quench in used motor oil As mentioned blade sites have a wealth of info depending on what you want to do. FGYT Maker.

Feb 8, 3, 8 50 Cranborne Chase Dorset www. HillBill Bushcrafter through and through. Oct 1, 8, 62 W. Click to expand HillBill said:. That is all you need for Once your used to it no amount of fancy ovens etc will make it noticably better. If i may add a little to that?

Wrap your bade in foil shiney side out 2mm should be in for around 45 minutes 3mm for an hour 4mm for 1 hour 10 minutes These are what works in my oven and gives an even temper throughout the blade. There is the right way to heat treat O-1, and then there are the hundreds of ways that us folk without the right kit attempt to approximate those results. Its for that reason than trying to use a "recipe" from someone else who doesn't have the right gear either can be a little dodgy. Their perception of colour will differ for instance, nothing I have ever hardened has looked cherry red, dull or otherwise, at the time it has become non-magnetic, it all looks orange to me , their quench media will differ, and the way that their tempering set up works will differ.

Best advice is to get a little bar of steel, whatever you will be working, O-1 or whatever, and do tests. Separate your hardening and tempering processes and just try things. Try cycling, multi-quench, single quench, trying to hold at temperature, and quenching immediately on a rising heat. Tempering is easier to experiment with as long as you start off by aiming low, you can always retemper something that is too hard, but if you use too much heat, and leave it a moment too long, you can't get the hardness back.

By testing you will get a feel for the steel without having to wait to make a blade, or risk the grain growing through over heating or decarbing the edge in the fire, or warping or cracking on the quench. Hillbill I guess that the reason for foil is to prevent the blade getting hotter, through radiant heat, than the air in the oven, which is probably what the sensor measures. Have you tried it with and without foil?

How did it compare? Setting a higher temperature of C probably gives satisfactory results because you A don't leave it in there long and B keep opening the door. So the blades may never get to C and if they did, they would be out and cooling immediately. My oven appears to slowly ramp up in temperature so that the longer I leave things in there, the hotter they get, despite the setting on the dial. However, it takes an hour for that to happen, so I am able to leave blades for an hour to an hour ten minutes and they come out fine.

My parent's oven on the other hand its a new fangled fan assisted thing never gets hot enough to temper anything even slightly Only after a very frustrating couple of hours was I told that they had never got it to bake bread properly either I am the sort of person who is never entirely satisfied with my work, I am always aiming to improve and I like to get a head start on experimenting by reading up on stuff first. I found the following information by Kevin Cashen to be very interesting and useful.

He has written some really good stuff on the US forums about heat treating in general, and O-1 in particular. Of these temperature has the most immediate and profound affect. Time at temperature has a more subtle effect, relieving stresses and increasing toughness with less loss of hardness. Leonidas Settler. Oct 13, 0 Briton www. Have heat treated some 01 blades in boiling brine. Got excellent results, in fact my favourite blade was treated this way.

The beauty of using brine as concentrated as it can be is that it leaves the metal needing very little cleaning Agree oil is perfect for 01 but saturated boiling brine leaves very little residue. Barney Settler. Aug 15, 0 Lancashire. Seems like some crossed wires here to me. Foil and the like is used in the hardening of steels not the tempering.

The generic material is Inconel foil as it is extremely resistant to oxidation and protects the steel from the environment within the high temperature oven and results in less oxidation and a reduced loss of surface carbon to atmosphere. This enables the rough grind tolerances to be a lot closer to the "finished" Size without degradation of the structure and "close to surface" steel composition.

I have tempered steel in a chip pan with a good degree of success. Many chip pans are thermostatically controlled fairly accurately up to - , which is perfectly acceptable for the heat treatment of O1. Barney said:. The foil keeps the heat even along the length of the steel. When i temper mine they all come out an even straw colour at the times i specified.

I do not open the oven to check. The first two i did i over tempered, they went blue, about 56RC a spring temper. Note: O1 is somewhat prone to quench cracking, especially if there are significant changes in section thickness and sharp internal corners.

The oil quenching should be performed so that the heat removal is as uniform as possible in all areas of the part being quenched. Be sure to remove the part from the oil before the temperature drops to ambient temperature. Tempering: Temper immediately after quenching. Hold at temperature for 1 hour per inch To minimize internal stresses in cross sections greater than 3 inches Cryogenic Treatment: Refrigeration treatments should typically be performed after the temper, and must be followed by a second temper.

Continue cooling to ambient temperature in the furnace or in air.