Rick, Thanks for taking the time to recreate what I saw...and it does sound like what I saw. I'll be finished forging another blade this weekend (f...

Rick, Thanks for the heads up. I actually was going to tap the threads into the back piece to avoid the whole "welding zinc" thing, and if the thre...

Rick, I'll post pics. About welding the nuts on...should I be concerned with what type of nut/steel and what gases it will give off? Seems like I h...

Rick, Yeah, I'm on a budget That is a very nice looking tool you've made there...I'm on my way to Lowe's tomorrow!

Very interesting Kevin. Are you indicating that the current blade I'm working on (1084) may not harden properly because I normalized three times and ...

Thanks Lin! I'll check out Uncle Al and John Perry (if on the web). Ed

Mike, I've seen pictures of blades coming out of both a kiln and a salt pot. My last normalizing cycle was probably as close as one could get to th...

Thanks again Mike I think I actually stepped down each normalizing cycle, although not intentionally. The first time I got it a little hotter t...

Rick, Just in case any of the following helps with your experiment: I have both a propane forge and a coal forge. I used the propane forge for the...

Thanks Mike, Although I thought I heated the piece evenly each time, it very well may have been "maker error" as far as even-ness of the heat, and, ...

Rick, That is what I thought was possibly happening, or something along those lines. First normalizing cycle, very splotchy as it cooled . Second...

Thanks Kevin! Very interesting and informative. I did take it from megnetic to just inside of non-magnetic, and back again down to fully magneti...