Thread: Forged razor out of 1084 not performing as well as I hoped trying to figure out why

Originally Posted by GuyMontag

Entirely possible. I did grind it fairly thin before heat treat, definitely thinner than the usual 'thickness of a dime' recommendation. It did hit the oil quench within 5-10s of getting out of the kiln though.

I'm sorry, 5 to 10 seconds? Did you have coffee first? I know knives let you get away with that sort of thing because they have a lot of thermal mass.
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that is much too long. I try to keep this time as short as I possibly can: out of the kiln and into the quench in 1 fluid motion that takes a second or so.
A razor has a very low thermal mass. Especially if it is already much thinner than is good, I can pretty much guarantee that this right here is your problem.
A razor's edge works like a thin cooling fin. By the time you hit your quench it was already far too cold.

Originally Posted by GuyMontag

Is there any issue that you know of with letting a blade sit at room temp for say, 2 hours or so before tempering it? I'm thinking if I can wait for my digitally controlled kiln to cool down from the 1,500 F annealing temp, I'd have a lot more luck with getting an even tempering temp.

None whatsoever in terms of end result. The only risk you run is with san mai blades that have a lot of stress in them after quenching.
If you leave those sitting for 2 hours, there is a good chance your razor will become 2 pieces

Subscribed....this is really interesting stuff....im sorry i have nothing to add but im here to learn!

You have received some pretty good info here.
The general rule is that 4:1 ratio of blade width to spine thickness. Greater than that and the edge crumbles while honing because it has lost carbon while heat treating and it is to thin while honing.

Use a meat thermometer inside the toaster oven to set the desired temp.

You have about 1 second to go from the forge/kiln to the quench. Practice/adjust your setup/layout before you start

The edge of the blade should be about the thickness of a dime or more before heat treating. It means more work while finish grinding but you get better steel as an end result.
and you avoid the "potato chip" edge.

Just my 2¢