(no subject)

[gfish]

Dammit, the new machete blade cracked when I was redoing the heat treatment.



I need to be more careful about normalization. I'm thinking I'll get a section of 2 inch black iron pipe, and heat the blades through that. It will make getting an even heat for quenching much easier, and if I turn off the burner and leave it in there, should be a nice, slow, even cooling for normalizing. Won't have to worry about gusts of air or the blade drooping as I move it around.

Comments

[niac.livejournal.com]

Have you considered a bucket full of vermiculite? Very effective for that role. (And for annealing)

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

That's what I used to use for glass. It does a great job. But I think it might be the rapid cooling of the initial quench that's killing him -- I don't know, coz I've been distracted and haven't followed the posts well enough.

[niac.livejournal.com]

Definitely; looking back, it appears that matt is using W-1, which is basically 1075 high carbon steel. Since it's rated as a water-hardening alloy , he *aught* to be fine with water quenching. But maybe not.

If I were going to do oil quenching, I'd use olive oil. It smells nicer than motor oil. ;)