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Russel,

I've heard this same thing, actually. I asked Mike about it once, and he said it didn't make a difference. Maybe he can chime in and clarify...

I can see both sides. On one hand, it...

Also, on the tempering cycle... A lot of guys recommend doing two or three one-hour cycles, but from what I understand there's no difference between doing two one hour tempers and one two hour...

Randy,

You're right about the recommended soak times being for steel 1" thick. But from what I understand it's still good to soak any piece of steel for at least a couple of minutes, just to be...

Always leave 'em wanting more. :D

Josh

So that’s it. You can do a good heat-treatment with simple tools and some basic knowledge. Improving your knowledge will allow you to get better results with the tools you have. Better tools give you...

Tempering
This is where tempering comes in. By heating the blade again, you allow the martensite to soften slightly and you relieve some of the internal stresses. You’re sacrificing some hardness to...

Hardening
After the steel has cooled to black for the third time, it’s time to harden it. Normalizing usually takes about 15 minutes, so my quenching oil has reached my target temperature of 130 F....

Normalizing
I start the heat-treatment process with a step that I didn't mention in my previous post. All the heating and cooling during the forging process, plus the heat and strain of the...

The Process
After I've forged a blade blank to shape and ground it close to its final dimensions on my belt grinder, I'm ready to heat-treat it. Heat-treating is the most important step in making a...

In my last post, I described some of the theory behind the heat-treatment process. To show how the theory looks in practice, I thought I'd describe how I go about heat-treating a typical blade. This...