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Where can I purchase high temp salt ... or do any of you have a good recipe for making my own?

About the best source would be Houghton International, but it will be in quantity. You may want to also try with suppliers that may offer it in smaller quantities like Kelly Cupples. Normally when somebody suggests making their own salts I bow out of the conversation ASAP. Salt baths can not only kill you, they can kill you in a very ugly way that makes a buffer flinging a knife into your guts pretty by comparison, thus my opinion is that any willingness to cut any corners with such an operation is disaster waiting to happen. Also after working with salts for over 20 years now, I personally believe they are gross overkill for what most knifemakers do and operations that do require them are prepared go all out with all the equipment, supplies and protocols to get the most out of them. There is no tool that can replace hands on time building skills and experience. Sorry for the preachy stuff, but if somebody offered you homemade recipe for 1500F molten salts on this forum I would be uncomfortable about it.

Thanks Kevin, I have ordered from Kelly in the past, I'll try him. I have had a salt tank spit at me. It burns quick and deep.

I did quite a bit of research on trying to figure out what to use for my salt pot. I built it based off Ed Caffrey's pot and the information he had on his site. He was also kind enough to chat with me about some of the finer points of the equipment and programming of the PID. I love my salt pot for heat treating my knives. I don't have an oven and being able to see for sure what temp I have the pot at vs using my gas forge. I don't get an over heated tip and scale build up like I did on occasion in my forge. That's not to say guys with good forges don't have great results-it's just with my setup, I get better results. Now, back to the "salts"...

For some various reasons, I end up deciding on a different medium than the standard stuff available from Kelly. I contacted several people and read MSDS info. Then, finally made my decision. I didn't do any of the mix of stuff from Ace hardware like some do. I'm not saying they shouldn't do it, I just chose not to. Something about how dangerous a salt pot can be kept me from doing so. My choice was after a lot of thought and research and so far, has worked pretty well for me. But, for some reasons Kevin has already mentioned, I choose not to specifically push people towards what I decided on. The safe bet in this case is the most used, best understood stuff.

With all that said, I may very likely switch and go with something from Kelly in the future-I'm sure you'll be happy with what you get from him. As I said before, for my setup, I really like being able to use my salt pot. HOWEVER-as has already been mentioned, they can be very dangerous. I don't want to be preachy, either-just be sure you do things very safely. Have fun and let us all know how it goes.

Jeremy