Thread: Coil spring steel crumbling

Thanks for the leed on New Jersey Steel Baron, however Charlie Lewis turned me onto Aldo Bruno at the little "grind in" he had at his shop a little while back & my last order of 1095 came from there. Excellent service indeed as well as great prices.

Now I need/want to find some Parks 50 at an affordable price...

Originally Posted by shooter74743

Now I need/want to find some Parks 50 at an affordable price...

Good luck with that, at any price! I bought mine from Heat Bath's Massachusetts plant years ago, before they turned into total jerks. You might have better luck picking up some of Houghto-Quench K, which is supposed to be comparable. I did a quick Google search before posting and found one place that it is offering it by the 5 gallon pail. Although at $255.54 a bucket, I wouldn't exactly say it's inexpensive.

I also found a place called Great Lakes Oil Company that makes/sells quenching oil. It looks like their GLOC Quench 100 is a fast oil, and they sell it in 5 gallon buckets (I don't see a price). They also have a Quench A oil, that sounds like it is comparable to Parks AAA. They sell that in 5 gallon buckets too. Again, I don't see a price, but USA Knife Maker Supply sells it for $67.81 a pail (they are currently out of stock).

Originally Posted by ChrisMeyer

Good luck with that, at any price! I bought mine from Heat Bath's Massachusetts plant years ago, before they turned into total jerks. You might have better luck picking up some of Houghto-Quench K, which is supposed to be comparable. I did a quick Google search before posting and found one place that it is offering it by the 5 gallon pail. Although at $255.54 a bucket, I wouldn't exactly say it's inexpensive.

I also found a place called Great Lakes Oil Company that makes/sells quenching oil. It looks like their GLOC Quench 100 is a fast oil, and they sell it in 5 gallon buckets (I don't see a price). They also have a Quench A oil, that sounds like it is comparable to Parks AAA. They sell that in 5 gallon buckets too. Again, I don't see a price, but USA Knife Maker Supply sells it for $67.81 a pail (they are currently out of stock).

I struggled with this for a long time before I found this:McMaster-Carr. The 11 second quench oil, comparable to AAA, is a pretty good price (including shipping, it was about 100$) and it's worked really well for me. Depending on what steel you're working with, AAA or 11 second works really well. That what I've seen recommended on numerous forums for O1 and personal experience has affirmed that.

Is there a point to $$$ quenching oil?
I've done all my oil quenching using preheated maize oil and that seems to deliver excellent results.

I believe it does, although there are plenty of people who are perfectly content with using vegetable oil, mineral oil, etc. To the best of my knowledge, most or all of the people doing heat treating professionally are using commercial quenchants (for non-stainless steels). Here is a link to Larry Olson's article entitled Proper Quenching Option Yields Better Heat-Treating Results (which, in the interest of full disclosure, is on Heatbath's website).

If you pop over to the hypefreeblades forum or the bladeforums you will find numerous discussions on quenching media. If you chose to peruse them, I believe you will find that the pro-commercial quenchant crowd is able to provide scientific support for their position, while the "alternative oil" people cannot.

Originally Posted by ChrisMeyer

I believe it does, ...

If you chose to peruse them, I believe you will find that the pro-commercial quenchant crowd is able to provide scientific support for their position, while the "alternative oil" people cannot.

I also believe that my twenty plus year old barrel of canola oil will harden steel quite well according to experimental observation in my shop consistently as tested on an accurate Rockwell machine. Do your beliefs outweigh my experience in my shop? BTW I am a trained scientist and I own a 55 gallon drum of Heat Bath oil that I have never used because my canola oil has not proven insufficient yet.

I could add to this argument that there have been significant numbers of years of historical heat treatment producing acceptably adequate blades suitable to cutting hair and other biological materials long before the advent of science began to study these things. Those blades were sufficient to their purpose, some of them were even legendary (Frankish steels). The history of science and heat treatment is short by comparison. It's no less rich for what it has added to our understanding of steel behavior, but it is also not required to produce a blade of acceptable performance and will add additional expense that a practical blacksmith or blade smith may not wish to pay for.

Besides, my shop smells like chips frying when I'm heat treating, with a little chicken thrown in and the occasional mouse...not some smelly smoking nasty industrial stuff...LOL

To add to what Mike said, I'm using recycled McDonalds frying oil. I get really hungry when I quench. Luckily, I'm only 6 miles from a Big Mac.

It's funny that the discussion should go this way. I started using a certain type of stainless that is excellent for kitchen knives, and had a heat treatment recipe that was very different from normal tool steel. Mike heat treated the first couple of blades. Then I started to wonder if I could do this myself. Everyone in my area told me that I should not do it because (insert random explanation). But that just doesn't make sense.

I looked at the recipe, thought about what it meant in terms of metallurgic things going on, and then simply did it old school: Inside an iron pipe in a charcoal fire, quenching in old maize oil, but after a longer soak and at a higher temperature as judged by the color of the steel. Understandably, I was a bit uncertain. Especially since that type of steel can remain plastic for many minutes AFTER quenching.

So I first did break tests in my workshop. After that I quenched a long blade, and broke that again right after HT to get an idea about grain size and strength. Then I sent it to Mike for rockwell testing. It came out at 59.5 over the entire blade surface, with a very fine grain size. And this is with my fire which has problems with longer blades (I have to rebuild it longer). I'd liked to have made it hotter before quenching but that wasn't feasible.

In any case, even primitive methods can yield great results. And while the scientific approach doe shave its merits in terms of repeatability and predictability, the knife world is rampant with fetishism where everyone is just looking for the next wonder steel, wonder tool or magic incantation. This is the same in the audio world where an audiophile once tried to convince me that his 500$ speaker cables really made a noticeable difference in sound quality. Sure, scientifically it will make a measurable difference. But in terms of double blind testing by actually listening to the music, it won't.

Experience, testing, practicing, and doing things are far more important for the quality of the end result than the price tag of the equipment you are using. A good smith can make far better blades with low cost equipment than an apprentice with a 2500$ anvil.

And the fact that vegentable oils are non toxic or carcinogenic as well as dirt cheap is a nice bonus.

This is a subject that is quite intriguing to me as I'm relatively new to heat treating. My personality is the type that as long as I'm learning, I stay with it. I have a LOT to learn on the metallurgical side of things. I agree that O-1 is great with canola oil as my mentor told me to use it and I did. It's worked great for me.

I now have a batch of blades (both kitchen & straights) that are of 1095 that need some final touch-ups before they get introduced to fire. After visiting Charlie Lewis (It's all his fault for planting the seeds ;-) I went with the 1095 because it's still a simple steel and with some work you can get some pretty cool hamon's with it. Can you get hamons with canola oil or should I use something quicker like brine water?