Evan

If you have had good success with 1084 why not stick with it? There is not a requirement for the steel,just what the blade can do.

I agree with Brian. If 1084 worked well why not use it. However it is good to have more than one steel in your repetoire. As for 5160, it is a fine steel for knives and swords. Very tough when heat treated correctly. 5160 can air harden because of the alloying elements, like chromium. Personally I just do a single quench on it. I do not feel there is a need for multiple quenches if the blade was normalized correctly. One question, do you have a propane torch? If so you can put the edge in a water bath and draw the spine with the propane torch. It does take a while, like twenty minutes or more, and I usually do it at least twice. Draw the spine to a blue color and this will stop approximately 1/4" the level of the water. Just have to be careful out near the point and do not go all the way to the point. A lot of people use 5160 for their JS performance test blades, a number use 1084 also.

See you in Little Rock.

Brion

|quoted:

Evan

If you have had good success with 1084 why not stick with it? There is not a requirement for the steel,just what the blade can do.

Well the only reason I wanna master 5160 as well is because someday I plan on making swords and longer blades and I really want flexible blades that perform well with the task at hand. With 5160 I feel I can definitely have these qualities and that is the only reason I'm trying to get better using this particular steel. I know what you mean though, and that is why I am definitely keeping 1084 as my option because it works well with the equipment I have for heat treating. I just wanna really get to know both steels as well as i can so I can use 5160 for larger blades/swords and 1084 for smaller blades. I might just stick with 1084 for the test and get good with 5160 on the side. I'm not exactly sure what I wanna do yet, but I figure that when I go to the bladesmithing class here in March that they will give me a better idea on what I want to do.

Evan

There are two ways to approach the ABS bend test, you can go for a very springy result that will tend to return as close to true as possible, or you can go for a bend. 5160 is a very good choice for the springy effect, while 1084 is the best choice for the bend. 5160 does note actually air harden in the sense that it will form a predominantly martensitic structure from air cooling, instead it will form extremely fine pearlite and probably some upper bainite which will give some of the more undesirable results of air hardening for this purpose.

There are a handful of areas that I would love to help all bladesmiths understand better regarding steel and blades and one is the subject of flexibility. The concept of blade flex is very misunderstood in our business and this is mostly due to confusion on the terminology. For the most part flexibility is determined by the shape and size the blade cross section and not effected by steel selection or alloying much at all. For larger blades we are better served by focusing on impact toughness, which is effected by alloying and heat treatment. 5160 works really well in this area because not only will it have a natural advantage from a lower carbon content, that carbon level will keep it all in the form of a special type of martensite known as lath martensite which will automatically have a greater toughness that steels with more carbon. Evan, should you explore some steels that are a bit more of a challenge as you move toward the big blades you want to make you may want to have a look at L6 and or one of the “S” series. L6 will easily leave 5160 behind in higher Rockwell and greater toughness, and some of the “S” series will blow both out of the water.

If you just want a bent blade, then the most effective way to go for that is to harden only the edge while leaving the body of the blade as soft as possible. Your 1084 will do this very well as it will go totally pearlitic on the spine without any issue and still give you an excellent high strength edge. 5160 will resist this a bit more for the reasons mentioned above but will through harden very well and then take a great spring temper on the spine to give you that springier flex instead of a bend.

I couldn’t agree more with Brion, learn proper normalizing and pre-hardening cycles, harden the blade once and be done.

|quoted:

I agree with Brian. If 1084 worked well why not use it. However it is good to have more than one steel in your repetoire. As for 5160, it is a fine steel for knives and swords. Very tough when heat treated correctly. 5160 can air harden because of the alloying elements, like chromium. Personally I just do a single quench on it. I do not feel there is a need for multiple quenches if the blade was normalized correctly. One question, do you have a propane torch? If so you can put the edge in a water bath and draw the spine with the propane torch. It does take a while, like twenty minutes or more, and I usually do it at least twice. Draw the spine to a blue color and this will stop approximately 1/4" the level of the water. Just have to be careful out near the point and do not go all the way to the point. A lot of people use 5160 for their JS performance test blades, a number use 1084 also.

See you in Little Rock.

Brion

Thank you for the advice Brion. Are you asking if I have a bigger propane tank with the forge or a smaller canister? I do have a small plumbers propane torch, i was using this method but got tired of moving the whole canister with my arm back and forth without much success. The tank is almost empty on me because the flame started to die on me after about 15 minutes. I use a propane forge and have a 40 pound propane tank as well and was looking to see if there is a good attachment for this to allow me to temper the back of the blade. I really wish I had an acetylene torch. I'm thinking that I may go with 1084 for the test because of the previous success I have had with it in the past and because of the advice here. I am starting to like the single quench because I have been breaking blades and the grain looks good in the 5160 and 1084 blades that I have produced. I'm ready for the knife show to get here already, I'm pretty excited!

See you there!

Evan

|quoted:

There are two ways to approach the ABS bend test, you can go for a very springy result that will tend to return as close to true as possible, or you can go for a bend. 5160 is a very good choice for the springy effect, while 1084 is the best choice for the bend. 5160 does note actually air harden in the sense that it will form a predominantly martensitic structure from air cooling, instead it will form extremely fine pearlite and probably some upper bainite which will give some of the more undesirable results of air hardening for this purpose.

There are a handful of areas that I would love to help all bladesmiths understand better regarding steel and blades and one is the subject of flexibility. The concept of blade flex is very misunderstood in our business and this is mostly due to confusion on the terminology. For the most part flexibility is determined by the shape and size the blade cross section and not effected by steel selection or alloying much at all. For larger blades we are better served by focusing on impact toughness, which is effected by alloying and heat treatment. 5160 works really well in this area because not only will it have a natural advantage from a lower carbon content, that carbon level will keep it all in the form of a special type of martensite known as lath martensite which will automatically have a greater toughness that steels with more carbon. Evan, should you explore some steels that are a bit more of a challenge as you move toward the big blades you want to make you may want to have a look at L6 and or one of the “S” series. L6 will easily leave 5160 behind in higher Rockwell and greater toughness, and some of the “S” series will blow both out of the water.

If you just want a bent blade, then the most effective way to go for that is to harden only the edge while leaving the body of the blade as soft as possible. Your 1084 will do this very well as it will go totally pearlitic on the spine without any issue and still give you an excellent high strength edge. 5160 will resist this a bit more for the reasons mentioned above but will through harden very well and then take a great spring temper on the spine to give you that springier flex instead of a bend.

I couldn’t agree more with Brion, learn proper normalizing and pre-hardening cycles, harden the blade once and be done.

Thank you for the response and information here Kevin. Well I like the idea of 1084, especially after what you say, because I really want my blade to bend rather than flex because I feel it is safer in my opinion and it is also a little riskier with the flex I feel. When I edge hardened 1084 and tested it, i bent it back and forth without breaking for a good many times. When broken I could see it retained some nice pearlite in the back and I like that for the bending test. I can see why flexibility is a confused term and I also have confused it somewhat. I can understand that with proper blade cross section and size flexibility can be achieved without the steel being the determinant of this factor. Thank you for pointing this out and allowing me to better explain myself and understand the concept of flexibility better. Impact toughness is what I am looking for with these bigger blades and that is why 5160 is a good steel to my understanding. Lath martensite is tougher than martensite, that is a great thing for the big blades I have in mind for the future. Thanks for pointing this out. I have some L6 steel and have made some blades from this stuff and boy you are right about the toughness and hardness! I have read about an L6 katana that actually was used to cut through a japanese blade katana, I saw that Mastersmith Howard Clark makes katanas from L6 steel. The S series is out of my range along with L6 for awhile though since I'm getting 1084 and 5160 down to the specs I want. Again thanks for all of this information that is jam packed here, I have read a lot of your posts and you are very knowledgeable and I just really appreciate everything!

Evan

You are welcome Evan. I just use a propane torch with a hose, so the only thing I hold is the torch itself, not the tank. Yes it does take a while. The only thing I use this for is drawing the spine and the tang.

Looking forward to meeting you in Little Rock.

Brion

|quoted:

You are welcome Evan. I just use a propane torch with a hose, so the only thing I hold is the torch itself, not the tank. Yes it does take a while. The only thing I use this for is drawing the spine and the tang.

Looking forward to meeting you in Little Rock.

Brion

If you don't mind me asking, where did you get the hose attachment for your tank? I'm just curious so I can get an opinion on a good source for the hose attachment, and also that I get a setup that works well. Again thanks for the response and ideas and I look forward to meeting you too.

Evan

Evan

here are some

My link

My link

I yse a jth7 bernzomatic, but it seems they are no longer available.

Brian

Evan, either of those will work fine. Like Brian, I use a bernzomatic I purchased at Home Depot a number of years ago. Apparently that model is no longer made. See you in Little Rock.

Brion