Thread: RSO # 1

Originally Posted by DVW

Agreed, It should not be hard to drill. I cool mine down in a bucket of sand, but get the same results. Also, you don't need that much oil. In the past I just filled up a cheap steel bread loaf pan from a second hand store. I would think that half a gallon would work. Motor oil, olive oil or any cooking (vegetable) oil should all work for O1.

It is looking nice. Can't wait to see it finished. Very impressive, especially for a first attempt.

Those oils will all work, but stick to vegetable oils because motor oil vapors are toxic and carcinogenous.
Half a gallon will work, though if you're heat treating a couple of things in a row, it might get too hot.

Originally Posted by 10Pups

Well I would rather do it right as long as this experiment is going good. I mean that's the purpose of it. To see what happens before I make a few at once. I still may try to punch the hole just to see how that goes although I do have 2 more blanks of O1 to play with. I'll check into the cost of quenching oil when I order more O1 the right size.

Quenching oil is pretty expensive, and it won't really make any measurable difference.
Mike Blue still uses the same old vat of vegetable oil and he knows what he's doing and has the measurements to back this up. Quenching oils are expensive, and produce toxic vapors as well during the quench.

Originally Posted by skipnord

There is more than one reason to normalize. Soft enough to drill is one. Another is grain structure. If you don't normalize, you will have a very coarse grain structure, which is definitely not conducive to good steel in the final product. As far as vegetable oils are concerned, you need to be concerned about the flash temperature. Peanut oil is one that has a relatively high flash temp.

Mine will flash sometimes, depending on temperature of the oil and the blade.
If you have only a relatively small oil surface (my oil is in a vertical piece of pipe) it'll be no more than a flash that lasts a couple of seconds. Btw, flash or not, it is always a good idea to use long tongs and stand back from the quench. Should anything crack, flash, or vent, you don't want your face in the neighborhood.

Watching from the side lines, 10 Pups.... Really like your blade profile.
Regarding punching through, have you tried it on a spare piece just lying around, so as not to damage that beautiful blade your working on?

In Christ
SB

Well Bruno : it looks like peanut oil then. I know peanut is more but as much as I like occasional excitement I hate cleaning up after fire extinguishers .

Steeleback : yes I will be trying it on a piece I have already ground to death. I will also be getting some practice when I get around to making tongs. I have started this tong thing but the visual of how they are supposed to look disappears when I start hammering for some reason. I'm usually good at this sort of thing but I have been brain fading on this one for some reason. It's not like I haven't watched 6 or 8 vids a thousand times :<0)

I have been crawling along on this project because I have had soo much other stuff to do but I am feeling the need to get on with it soon.

There are a couple of good youtube vids on making tongs which really explain the process well.
What you could also do (my favorite) is to tag weld a length of rebar to the end and use that to handle the steel while doing all the rough work. Much more convenient imo.

I do believe that would be best for the rough work. More banging less hanging on. Going to need tongs anyway. I probably have my first few heat treated by a pro but if I don't I will need them by then.


Has anybody used A-2 ? My metal guy dropped some of that on the counter and said I should try it. Air quench ? It had my wondering all sorts of things. How would heat treat be different from normalizing and how much carbon is in that. Have yet to look all that up , just wondering if anybody had thoughts on it or tried it.

I have seen several A2 razors on this site, so it must work. I have not had any experience with it my self. I am curious about it also.

Charlie

Never used A-2 or any air hardening steel for that matter. Mike will probably know more.

I took a break from restoring Sunday and fired up the forge. I got a deal on 4 pairs of tongs at the bay. 2 are long and a little heavy, 1 a little small and a pair of champions for holding 2 sizes of round stock. I tuned up the latter 2 and got the others apart waiting to be re-pinned. The holes were kind of oblong and straightened that out. I need to get some material to make rivets out of.

SO, having a way to get my RSO in and out of the forge I decided to normalize it and on the first heat I grabbed some punches and put a hole in the tang.

It came out great and so I went ahead with the normalizing while I hammered on the other tongs. 3 times past nonmagnetic and cooled in some sandy loose dirt. I can file it, so it must be there right ?



This is probably the slowest build in SRP history :<0) I was going to go ahead and heat treat it but I never got around to getting some oil in a bucket so I stopped here. Still debating on the oven too.