Thread: Question on 1095 heat treatment—- how many quenches?

I have done some knife forging but now dipping my toes into SR.

I have read and re-read the book by R. Williams (Straight Razor Renaissance). Great book.

He describes heating to non-magnetic and quenching 3 times followed by two tempering cycles at 350.

My only “experience” is seeing contestants on forged in fire (don’t hate) get dire warnings when they do multiple quenches.

What is the collective experience?

I'm no expert, but there is no advantage to multiple quenching a simple carbon steel like 1095. I have seen a slight increase in performance with 5160 and 52100 using triple quenches, and in those cases it's easy to think of the first two quenches as thermal cycles, but even then I only notice the increase in performance with a lot of rope cutting. 10 series steels really don't gain anything from more than one quench, and if care is not taken it's a good way to cause excess stress and crack your blade. I haven't used 1095 much, but it really likes a fast quench, Park's 50 works well, I would not recommend water, though some do well with it.

The "non magnetic" is more of a road sign than anything else. Non magnet is around 50 deg. F. cooler than where you want to be for transformation and quench, depending on the steel. It is a good repeatable sign post that with experience will let you quench without a digital oven however. Also, 350 for seems a bit low for 1095. Without looking at my notes and off the top of my head I'd think 400 would be a better temper temp. But, the temps you use and I use will be different, depending on the oven and where it's placed. I use a Paragon oven and a friend of mine uses an Even heat. The two ovens are basically the same, except the Even heat is taller and my Paragon is shorter. Minor physical differences and placement can make a difference in results, as can minor alloy differences from different sources of the same basic alloy. Most times these differences are so minor as to not be noticeable without extensive testing however. Which leads to the best way of testing your heat treat recipe, testing. For knives I use sisal rope and the brass rod test, and depending on the design antler and wood chopping among others. As one of my inspirations to blade making said, whittle a phone pole in two and you'll know just about everything you need to about handle and blade geometry. One thing I have noticed is that I can temper at a lower than recommended temp by tempering longer. The recommended temp is say two 400 deg. cycles, but if I use three 2 hour cycles I can lower the temp to 375. So while a recommended temp is recommended, there is room for experimentation.


A word of warning on simple carbon steels, on any high carbon steels, but mainly the simple 10's, if you wait too long to temper the blade can crack on it's own from internal stress. I wonder on FIF just how many of the blades develop cracks due to quenching early and not going rite to temper. Also, keep in mind FIF, while interesting to watch, is basically 3 days, not counting the final challenge, condensed down into less than 45 minutes.

As an aside, I am ordering the book you mentioned, it looks like an interesting read.

Hope this helps

Just keep it simple. A single quench and a single or double temper is enough. All we are trying to do is remove hair from our faces. There are razors out there from the 1700s that still 250 years later give great shaves, made without the use of digitally controlled kilns, triple quenches, salt bath doodads, etc. If you are just starting down this road you really want to keep it as simple as possible, one alloy, one simple heat treat process, perfect that before moving on or you'll just spend too much time experimenting and too little time actually getting any razors made. Best of luck to you.

Single quench, double temper.
Also, non magnetic is not really reliable because it's not quite hot enough. When you hit not magnetic and go a little higher, you will see the blade suddenly getting brighter all over. That is when the transformation happens.

Great info, thanks!

Thank you for all of the advice you share here. I really appreciate it. I’m brand new to SE and DE, I also blacksmith and am planning to make a wedge for me lather catcher. Thanks again 🤙🏽⚒️🪒

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Originally Posted by bluesman7

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Beautiful work! I made some progress forging 5160 to a wedge shape last night. I don’t have the grinders, or the skills to finish the project just yet. I imagine I could hand file to shape and heat treat. I don’t yet have the skills to bring an edge to razor sharp.