Mini electric kiln project

[scott.livesey]

O1 is my current choice, mainly because I was able to get a large amount cheap. when you buy the O1, find a brand name that has 0.2% vanadium in the alloy, helps maintain very fine grain. for O1 I heat to 800C and hold for 7 minutes if thickness is 1.5mm or less and 15 minutes for 4mm thickness. I get an as quenched hardness around Rc65-66 and usually temper at 175C to 200C which should be Rc 62-63 which is O1 sweet spot for hardness and toughness.
80CrV2 is a good steel for all size knives. I usually heat to 800C for the same times as O1. good luck and happy knife making.
scott

[Jan]

Mr. Scott, thanks for sharing your experience and recipes, it helped me to make first small steps on the steel heat treatment parquet.

Jan

[EOU]

What's on the menu now Jan? In other words, what are you going to cook up next?

[Jan]

For the near future I have several O1 knife making billets and later I plan to experiment with hardening and tempering of stainless steel X90CrMoV18, which requires hardening at temp above 1000°C.

In the more distant future I would like to learn basics of forging.

Jan

[EOU]

Well Jan, we know a guy who lives in South Dakota who can help you with forging and he has a big bunkhouse with your name on one of the beds. His name is Mark Reich. Ever heard of him?

[Jan]

Mike, thanks for your good tip! It would be surely a perfect introduction!  

As you may guess, I do not want to become a real blacksmith, my arthrosis would not allow that, but I just want to try it, if the kiln allows it. So far I do not have a proper anvil, just a piece of rail and a pair of ancient blacksmiths tongs.

   

Jan

[Mike Brubacher]

Well Jan, should you ever find your way to Mark's I'll meet you there and bring Rupert with me. Isn't that an interesting picture you posted? I'm going to recommend that they replace those wooden 2 x 4s with something a little more fire resistant if they ever fire the furnace up again.  You know I was in a very similar place here in Arizona a couple of years ago. It's amazing how we lose track of  even the most basic and fundamental things in this age and I'm as guilty of this as the next guy. The guy I was visiting was a blacksmith in the old style and a collector of blacksmithing tools and memorabilia. He had a large collection of Arizona cattle branding irons.  I was interested in them but was most interested in very early examples.  I kept picking up various branding irons and asking if it was circa 1900 and he kept shaking his head, no. Finally he decided to give me a little lesson in welding. He picked up a more modern era branding iron and showed me the electronic weld that attached the head to the shaft. Then he showed me an example where two pieces of metal had been heated up and hammered together to form a weld. Of course the heated and hammered weld was indicative of an early piece. He ended up presenting me with the example 
pictured below. It has a short spike that is meant to be mounted in a long wooden handle. A good idea, especially if you're working without gloves.

                     

I think that you can see pretty clearly how the two pieces were welded in the first picture. For a guy who whose earliest exposure to welding was my dad's electric arc welder, it was a revelation.

[Jan]

Mike, thanks for sharing this interesting story.  

It seems to me that we exchange thoughts not only through posts but also through telepathy. I plan namely to experiment with forge-welding of low and high carbon steels and also welding of quite dissimilar metals.

Jan

[Jan]

My small electric kiln is not able to melt iron, but is able to melt bronze, gold and even copper (1084°C = 1983°F).

Also old Egyptians, more than 4 000 years ago, were able to melt gold by blowing into a fire.

   

Jan

[Mark Reich]

Thanks Guys!

We would love to have your company, and there's room for all. 

Mr. Rupert and his wife, Ever, will indeed be here in May, which we are very much looking forward to! Maybe you'd like him to bring you along, Mr. Mike!