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Hey all, I am practicing for my performance test. For the past 5 years i have been heat treating and tempering by eye and a kitchen oven. About two months ago i bought a heat treat oven and found all the temps i need for 1095cs. I was wanting to know around what rockwell is the best passing the performance test and above that the best for a field type knife to be used in the woods. Everything i was reading said 500F for 2 hours will give me 59-60rc. Going to test and bend allot of blades before i say i got it but would like to be close so i don't waste to much time.

Thank you

Brandon Austin

Hello Brandon. 1095 would not be my first choice for a test blade, it has some characteristics from the extra carbon that tend to work against you in the physical tests and require a much higher attention to detail in the heat treatment. It is these quirks that has resulted in 1095 getting a bad rap from smiths with less experience in working with it despite it normally being an excellent steel. To put it simply 1095 cannot be heat treated like it was 1084 or 1075, it needs more precision in the heating, and requires different temperature ranges.

The 500F mark is valid if everything thing else is textbook and ideal. And indeed when I have achieved proper solution without oversaturating the carbon solution, the numbers for softening in tempering are mind blowing with such a simple steel. However, when you don't quite nail the solution the temperatures will be a bit lower and more like 1075. I would resist following any direct temper temperature to HRC number directions, and sort of walk your heat treatment in by starting low (around 400F for a test blade) and then bumping the temperature up in sequence until you get the performance you are looking for. But unless you are in tight control of the hardening temperatures the results are going to vary on you.

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Hello Brandon. 1095 would not be my first choice for a test blade, it has some characteristics from the extra carbon that tend to work against you in the physical tests and require a much higher attention to detail in the heat treatment. It is these quirks that has resulted in 1095 getting a bad rap from smiths with less experience in working with it despite it normally being an excellent steel. To put it simply 1095 cannot be heat treated like it was 1084 or 1075, it needs more precision in the heating, and requires different temperature ranges.

The 500F mark is valid if everything thing else is textbook and ideal. And indeed when I have achieved proper solution without oversaturating the carbon solution, the numbers for softening in tempering are mind blowing with such a simple steel. However, when you don't quite nail the solution the temperatures will be a bit lower and more like 1075. I would resist following any direct temper temperature to HRC number directions, and sort of walk your heat treatment in by starting low (around 400F for a test blade) and then bumping the temperature up in sequence until you get the performance you are looking for. But unless you are in tight control of the hardening temperatures the results are going to vary on you.

Thank you for the feed back, you have been a big help to me. I have been working on m finish since the emails. I will do some more reading thank you.

Been doing allot of reading today, on the forums and other places. It is looking like i should be going with 5160 for my first blade. I have always used 1095, but has you stated above its not always perfect. I have made allot of blades and they all kinda perform differently. I do not want this i want my blade to act the same way every time.

I've often found 1095 to be inconsistent in heat treating. And that's with an evenheat, not eyeballing it. It'll make a good blade, but I've found W1 to be much more consistent in general for a somewhat simple steel.

That said for the performance test, 5160 is probably the best bet, and what I'm planning on doing for mine

My suggestion would be to go with 1084 or 1075, they are already in the same family as 1095 so the shift will not be as dramatic for you and the carbon levels and chemistry are very conducive to the testing requirements. If you are intentionally trying to harden just the edge while leaving the spine pearlitic, 10XX series steels will naturally do that without any coaxing from you. 5160 is an alloy steel designed to resist pearlite formation and will naturally want to form mixed micro-structures in the unhardened spine. To be honest, it has always been a mystery to me that so many use 5160 for test blades, and the real reason for this is that it is so often recommended, rather than having the ideal chemistry. Now if you are going to through-harden and rely on a differential tempering to make your test blade, then the 5160 would give more consistent results, but not in differential hardening.

I used 5160 for my JS test blade but that was a VERY long time ago and I really didn't know any better, and I was an expert at making my own life harder than it had to be back then. Heck for my MS blade I used L6 and 1095, which was just plain insane, I have definitely learned a thing or two the years since then.

That is actually a very good point metallurgy wise. Should have occurred to me with the number of textbooks I've read. I might try doing a test blade from some W1 drill rod, and see how it fares. If anything it will be good practice at least