Barry, I use 5160 a lot and a medium speed oil is plenty. The "O" in O-1 designates oil as the prefered quenchant. I recommend a medium oil for it as well. At worse it may not harden as deeply as you want and you can then use the faster oil. Using too fast a quenchant always means it might crack. I always use as slow a quench as I can and still successfully harden the blade.

Thanks Lin. So something along the speed of Parks AAA would be just right then. I might have to invest in the slower oil since I want to start using 5160.

Barry, 5160 is a work horse of a steel. It's very forgiving and tough. It will harden in a lot of available oils that are not expensive. You'll like it.

What oils are you talking about Lin? I don't mind spending the money to get the right oil if it removes one of the variables from the learning curve. But with that being said inexpensive is good!

It's always better to use oil is formulated for quenching such as the ones you mentioned, but 5160 hardens well in cheap stuff like transmission fluid, canola, etc. Mine is some cutting oil I got from a bulk oil company. It's supposed to be able to mix with water, but I dont. I use Parks 50 for the picky stuff, like W2, W1 and most of the time for 1084 and 1095.

As Lin said, oil hardening steels will open you up to a much wider choice of quenching oil options than shallow hardening steels like 10XX series or W series. O-1, 5160, 52100, L6 are all examples of oil hardening alloys, look for the chrome for deeper hardening. Brownell’s, McMaster – Carr, Park’s AAA, Houghton’s Houghto-Quench 3430 all would work well and there are also very suitable oils made by Chevron, Amoco and others. Check online or with any of your local oil product dealers and they will probably have something that would work for your steel choice. Of these AAA will be the most headache and expense to obtain when any of the others will work.

I heat treat O-1 and 5160 often in my salts with very good results, one can do them in #50 if they get very creative with timed quenching and are really good at it, but the hassle may not be worth not just getting a better matching oil. Also with these steels the improvised quenching alternatives such as automotive products of vegetable based oils are more than up to the cooling task, reducing the negatives down to consistency, health issues and product life. It is when you also add insufficient speed with the shallow hardening steels the cost of the good stuff doesn't seem all that expensive anymore.

Thank you Lin and Kevin for your replies and help! It is refreshing to post a question and get honest answers from folks who actually know what they are talking about. As it happens on a lot of the knife making sites I frequent when you ask a question the replies are riddled with opinions, conjecture and pure BS and always one guy telling you how wrong you're doing something.

Thanks gentlemen!

Barry:

Thank you for your comments about the ABS Forum. During the past year the Forum moderators Master Smiths Steve Culver and Brion Tomberlin and I as Forum Administrator have worked hard to create and maintain a Forum for American Bladesmith Society members that is both a source of technical information for bladesmiths and news about ABS members and events.

The mission of the American Bladesmith Society is education. We have been very fortunate to have had the participation of Master Smiths, Journeyman Smiths, and Apprentice Smiths who are willing to take the time to share their knowledge with our members and the public. When a question is posted by an ABS member, it is usually answered promptly by one of our Master Smith contributors or moderators including Kevin Cashen, Lin Rhea, Ed Caffrey, Mike Williams, JD Smith, Greg Neely, Russ Andrews, and John White, or one of our top Journeyman Smith contributors including Karl Andersen, Brian Thie, Dale Huckabee, and Dan Hockensmith. I don't want to leave anyone out but these members have given a lot of their time to help others and share their knowledge of the forged blade in the educational tradition of the American Bladesmith Society.

Not all that many years ago, a lot of makers used Texaco "A" as the go-to oil for the deeper hardening steels like 5160, 52100, etc.

Seems as if that material finally came to en end.

Well, here recently, another company has picked up that recipe and is producing it and making it available in Indiana!

The name of the company is Great Lakes Oil Company. http://www.greatlakesoil.com/

Go to that home page and click their main logo in the top line of their logo listing - GLOC Private Label Products.

In the "available products", click "Quench Oil".

Top of the list is "Quench A".

I've spoken to representatives and it is the exact formula of the old Texaco "A".

And the price is fantastic!!!

Thanks Karl! The web site doesn't list the price so I will contact them about selling a small quantity.

Here is the text of an email from GLOC in response to my query of 5 gallons:

"Hi Karl,

The GLOC Quench A would ship from our Indiana blending plant in Bristol. We do not have it in stock in Painesville at the moment. The cost of the pail is $59.25 and we can make arrangements for you to pick it up in Bristol. Shipping UPS from Bristol would be approx $16.00."

Elaine Newman

National Sales & Operations Manager

440.352.9050

440.639.8010 fax

[email protected]

www.greatlakesoil.com

Karl I sent a blind email to them from the contacts page hopefully someone actually moniters and responds to them. If I don't get a reply in a couple days I'll contact Ms. Newman directly. Thank you much for the info! Its making me even more excited to begin learning a new steel.