I saw that, nice setup Alex!
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in te long run it really is the ony way to go (goood temp controles adn the right oils ) ues i knwo there are salt pots and the like tooo
i also have the kiln and parks oil
in the long run the gear pays for its self in making less mistakes adn in heat tretaing the steels you what how you want and not wait on shipping and turnaround times from another maker or HT shop
most you guys could get a small kiln and 2 gal of oil and be set maybe 700$ tops
not sure the price on this little kiln but i have a larger even heat kiln and love it for bang for the buck i have the 18 inch (900$ ish)and have plans to geta 36 incher
Yep, I agree
Food for thought.
Where is a good place to shop for a small kiln.
Deckard
try to get some scraps of the steel you are using and practice HT on them...
It isn't impossible, and if you are just wanting to make a razor or two for your self, it's an economical way to do it...
I just have a hollowed out fire brick, and a propane torch... it's challenging to keep the heat even inside, but that's because I put my fire hole too far back. What isn't hard is judging when it is hot enough... When I did my heat treat, I could see a line where it went from red to cherry red... not very hard to distinguish.
I double checked using a strong magnet on a pair of needle nose pliers. on one side of the line, the magnet stuck, on the other it didn't.
By the time I was able to get the whole razor up to this temp, and even (which took a little bit of adjustments on my part) I had the edge soak pretty much done. The thin part heats up the fastest, and cools quickly too.
A quick turn, and it was in oil and cooling.
That also only takes a couple of seconds... I left it in the oil for about 30 seconds, and tested on a file... the file just skipped...
If I did everything right, I should be shaving with my first home made razor in about a week... (sooner if I didn't have other responsibilities)
I can't tell you what the hardness is, I only did one temper at 400 degrees for 1 hour, and it is some tough steel... I'm guessing high 50's primarily because It's O-1, and my first try... I figure it isn't perfect, and there probably is some retained Austinite. But if it holds an edge, and shaves smoothly, what more do you want?
1095 or 1080 will retain less austinite with the same heat treat, and probably come out a bit harder, simply because of more room for user error...
Next time I do it, I'll try to get it on video. I'm not great at it, but the mystery goes away with practice.
Thanks for sharing, glad you have gone before me.
Would you say it's better to watch the coulour of the edge, and not worry to much about the rest, tang etc.
Non magenetic can be a little short of critical temp, so figure using eye to judge cherry is better, dull orange/orange is not good, (bigger grains).
File test can be a bit misleading, but better that nothing.
from the bit of practice I've had with scrap bits of 1084 I find the colour is duller than you might think, I've been overheating and need to recalibrate my eyes.
Have you thought about dry ice to pull out that retained austenite and another tempering cycle?
At the end of the day, the shave is the ultimate test, can't wait to hear how you get on with that.
Deckard
I did my heat treat in a dark room, so it went quickly from dull red to bright red almost orange, but that is also where the magnet stopped sticking.
I have a small left over oiece of steel that I'm going to HT and break to look for grain structure, just to see what happens...
But as said, it's the feel of the finished product that counts...
Any word on when we'll move forward with this?
if doing by eye simple steel look for the shadow to stop dancig then jsut a hair more heat then quench
its decalensence SP? when the phase of the steel shifts it cools the steel (the shadows) then if you keep the heat up then quench you get as low a tempas you can and still make the steel as hard as yu have preped it for
prep ?
we did the normalizing steps right ?
I did what me book told me to, which was some "heat cycling"... I'll have to look back to be sure, but the piece I bought was quote unquote annealed and normalized, and I kept the temperature way down when doing my grinding... No color change at all. so hopefully I did things right.
I may have to send one of them out to have the hardness tested and my amatuer work evaluated once I can test shave with it...
I'm stil learning, so if these turn out just okay, I'm still happy. I'm learning loads from my experiment, so hopefully I will improve with every attempt.
Good for you Mike, at least you have had a go and my guess is there will be more.
When you start shaving, it will be interesting to know how long you go before you need to go back to the hone.
I'm hoping it will hold for a long time, I only did a single temper.
I may send my first two hand made razors out to members for evaluation, once I'm confident that they will hold an edge...
I would like to know what the hardness is on them, and what other people think.
I have some damascus I've bought, and I plan on having a pro do the HT on it for me... It's too expensive for me to play around with...
One more thing guys as a side note... I think it's reasonable to ask for some help with heat treating, but in keeping with the spirit of this experiment we should all be trying to find ways to grind our own blades and do all of the other work. Please let me know if this changes anything because we just did a test run and it looks like it will work the way that I had hoped it would and we should be ready to go.
Here is a blank cut a few days ago out of 1/4 inch 5160 steel (I had the stock and I've seen where others have used it with success, so I figured i'd see how it looked)
Attachment 36729
Attachment 36728
I was planning on cheating & getting some help on the heat treating. I'm game for doing everything ourselves besided the HT. I think we would appreciate that particular SR more...
Looks good by the way!!
Looks great....
Looking good.
Toyed with the idea of buying a small knife kiln, I didn't get a good look from the wife when I mentioned it!!:rant: Ah well a man can dream, I'll after work on her and figure another way to sell the idea.
Thinning the tang symetrically I've found can be a bit tricky, any advice on this is welcome as getting the blade to close centraly in scales can be somewhat influenced by this.
Looking forward to some of the members efforts.
Deckard
If you don't have a belt sander, get some 50 grit sand paper and a flat piece of wood and just hand sand the tang...
It isn't hard to do before your HT
and polish your blank to as close to your desired final finish as possible before HT
it makes it a lot easier
Thanks Mike,
How about keeping it central to spine?
I figured it's best to put blank on flat surface and use some sort of gap/slip gauge and ensure gap is same when blank is turned over, obviously this would be done before thinning the blade. I understand there are ways of centralising in the scales if it's not quite perfect.
:beer2:
for those that are thining about a small kiln Tim Z was where i got my even heat and he had the best price around
not liek hes known for razors too :) hell of a nice guy and great to deal with
when i order my big one he willl be who i calll
I think there are some sort of regulations here in the UK regarding door interlock to live elements in electric kilns. Think I read somewhere that most US electric kilns are ilegal here, prices on TZ site are good though.
Looks like this is coming along nicely! I cant wait.
I agree that we should all do our own blades as far as shaping, grinding & polishing go. Personally, I will be sending out for heat treat and tempering.
Yeah, no problem.
I've just figure out how to attach photo's to thease threads.
I'll try to get better pictures as I do my next blade, butthat might be a week or so away
as for pictures, open a free Photobucket account
and upload there, then post the img link in your reply
Here's my way of thinning the tang central to spine inspired by Mike Ratclif's advice. If you look at the marked tang photos you will see how uneven the tang is. The center line marker was put on the following way.
1. Fix a marker pen to a flat surface as shown ensuring the nib is about central to the stock thickness, it dosn't have to be exact as you will see later. The reason for fixing the marker is to ensure that height dosn't vary as you can't assume the nib is concentric to pen case so needs to be kept in constant position.
2. Keeping razor blank flat on surface, move it around all the tang profile.
3. Flip over the blank and again repeat step 2. You should end up with two lines about the centre line.
By looking at my project you can see how unsymetrical my thinning is and more work is required on the sander to correct this. My lines look like one thick mark because they are close together and nib was thick, but I think this gives a good enough indication by eye to make adjustments.
Obviously it's best to do this before thinning the blade as you have a greater flat area as a datum, I've obviously made a mistake because I'm learning as I go but think I've got room to recover the situation.
I know it sounds obvious but also ensure that pin hole is put in before thinning the tang.
This is my first razor and I'm following Bob Allman's steps, and I'm sure there might be other maybe easier ways to do this, so please share if you know. I've steered clear of using engineering equipment to mark out etc as I'm determined to do this as basic as possible, but you can be as as sopisticated as you prefer.
Excuse photography, I'm not brilliant.
Deckard
Thats a great tip! Thanks :D
Thanks for the photos on the tang stuff Deckard...
hey guys, we are pretty much ready to roll. I need a few things though, for those of you who liked the smiling shape or the generic shape, send me a pm with your email address so that I can email you a scale photo of the designs...
Then I would ask you to cut out the design, copy it to cardboard, and give it a test grip to see where you'll put your pivot... and to make sure the feel is right for you.
This blank is perfect for MY grip, but I hold razors farther back than some... please make sure it works for you before we cut the steel.
Start getting excited
Dave
Deckard:
Make sure to drill your pivot before you thin any more, it's going to be hard to get the hole straight once your tang is ground thin...
Hi Mike,
It's probably not easy to see the pivot hole from the photos, but it is there, I drilled it before thinning blade and tang for the reasons you mention. It's 1/16" diameter, I plan to use brass rod.
Does anyone have any thoughts on the size of this hole, are there any hard and fast rules?
no... I've seen anything from 1/16 to 1/8, just depending on what the pivots will be made of... most vintage razors are 1/16 though IME (at least at the scales... some have kinda funky holes on the actual razor tang)
Don't mean to bump this guys, but I just wanted everyone to know that the steel is on the way, and the designs are all laid out. I hate to do this to you guys,:rolleyes:
but I have a new design I made today that I'm waiting to show you until everything is cut. Let me just say that it is WILD! My wife said wicked, but I'm going with wild. I hope you guys get a kick out of it... it's kinda out there.
Anyway, the wheels are in motion! start doing your homework on how to get everything done... won't be long now.
Ok I just peed a little! Get it done and let's see it already, lol.
Well? Is it ready yet?
Man, that's not right! Come one man, show us some eye candy...
Any word on how these are going?
Sure... I placed the steel order on wednesday night after talking with everyone involved and getting the cash for the order. I am waiting for some kind of shipping confirmation from the girl in charge of the order at the steel place. It should arrive at the shop in a day or two assuming that they got the package out on thursday morning.
I'll keep you posted as soon as I hear back.
Dave
I can't speak for the rest of the gang, but I am quite excited by the prospects and applaud you for organizing this experiment. The time it takes is what it will take and that is exactly as it should be.
I second the "thank you". The opportunity alone will be a wonderful adventure that I probably would have never taken if you hadn't offered to cut out these blanks.
I didn't get a number, but I was told that the steel shipped out today (I guess they took thursday and friday getting the order ready).
Anyway... it shouldn't be long, I'll post pics as soon as I get them
Dave
Ok guys, the first half of the blanks are cut! everything went just as planned except for one thing.... the camera got left at the shop, so no pics tonight. My brother promised to swing by and get them in the morning though, so I'll have them up as soon as I can. There may even be some video to show... we'll see how it all turned out.
Dave