There are folks on this forum with much better understanding of heat treatment than I have, but I'll try to start the ball rolling:

1. 2.3 mm is already very thin for reliable, safe heat treatment with simple quench procedures (as far as I'm concerned), especially with 1095 which needs a relatively fast quench. If I had to heat treat 1095 at that thickness I would be very careful with my pre-quench normalizing/stress relief heat cycles and to ensure that the thickness was very uniform for the length of the blade. Then I would look into plate quenching to attempt to quench while keeping the billet flat. I'm not sure if plate quenching can be done with 1095, due to the requirement for extremely rapid cooling. I'm not a fan of edge quenching at all, if you are trying to achieve optimal results. Other's opinions differ...

2. I don't have a good answer here, other than to say with mine I try to keep the minimum thickness at around 1/8" (3.175 mm) before quenching. Spring calipers are a good tool to check this. Other, better smiths certainly go thinner.

3. Absolutely yes for (3) descending temperature normalizing/stress relief passes.

|quoted:

There are folks on this forum with much better understanding of heat treatment than I have, but I'll try to start the ball rolling:

1. 2.3 mm is already very thin for reliable, safe heat treatment with simple quench procedures (as far as I'm concerned), especially with 1095 which needs a relatively fast quench. If I had to heat treat 1095 at that thickness I would be very careful with my pre-quench normalizing/stress relief heat cycles and to ensure that the thickness was very uniform for the length of the blade. Then I would look into plate quenching to attempt to quench while keeping the billet flat. I'm not sure if plate quenching can be done with 1095, due to the requirement for extremely rapid cooling. I'm not a fan of edge quenching at all, if you are trying to achieve optimal results. Other's opinions differ...

2. I don't have a good answer here, other than to say with mine I try to keep the minimum thickness at around 1/8" (3.175 mm) before quenching. Spring calipers are a good tool to check this. Other, better smiths certainly go thinner.

3. Absolutely yes for (3) descending temperature normalizing/stress relief passes.

Thank you for your experience. It is helpful. Really appreciate. Those problems have been trapped me for a while. I am definately gonna try it with your advices.

Most of my chefs are forged very close to shape. 0.120-0.140 at the base of the spine with full distal taper and an edge around 0.035 or so. I profile them before hardening. I normally interrupt the quench around 650 degf and straighten if necessary before the blade drops bellow 400.I like sever steels for chefs , 80crv2 , 1075 or w2 for hammon and several stainlesses as well. I also straighten in the temper or re-heat in low temp salt pots to straighten as well. Many chef makers just profile the blade and grind hardened at full thickness.

MP

|quoted:

Most of my chefs are forged very close to shape. 0.120-0.140 at the base of the spine with full distal taper and an edge around 0.035 or so. I profile them before hardening. I normally interrupt the quench around 650 degf and straighten if necessary before the blade drops bellow 400.I like sever steels for chefs , 80crv2 , 1075 or w2 for hammon and several stainlesses as well. I also straighten in the temper or re-heat in low temp salt pots to straighten as well. Many chef makers just profile the blade and grind hardened at full thickness.

MP

Thank you for your guidance, I will try your experience back.

Thank , I probably succeeded. I ground it directly to the thickness of 1.0 mm, covered the back of the knife with refractory cement instead of normalizing it. 810 degrees was soaked in quenching oil for about 6 seconds。I have a special thing to mention, which is that I coated a very thin layer of furnace cement on the edge of the blade.

The one on the left in the above picture, and the other two I need to summarize the experience and then harden（Hardness was tested this afternoon, Hrc59.5）

Nice!