I used to use Wd40 years ago but started to have many of the same health concerns, but I also hated how oil based sanding slurry was like permanent in...

The 1/16 1095 hot hardening tells a lot about what you are asking. For me the ideal way to configure these test coupons is to make a blade shaped wed...

Hello Jesse. There are 3 distinct phases to a standard quench. There is the initial vapor jacket formation when the blade is first produced, then th...

It is worth mentioning that if anybody notices a measurable gain in HRC from rapid temper cooling or a kitchen freezer with the simple alloys we are d...

Well, its not ideal, but we are talking knives not parts for airliner landing gear. There are many things that should be much worse for knife perform...

What I am about to say may shock people than blades, but I actually quench just about every blade in water between temper cycles. I do it mostly to...

Sorry that my forum time is limited these days, I am spending all of my time in the shop trying to meet the deadline for my ABS board knife for the au...

Karen and I were just discussing the way the knifemaking community responds to things like this. There are not too many other business communities th...

All of my gas fired equipment is in a separate, less enclosed, space than the rest of my shop, it has an exhaust fan in the peak and large sliding doo...

Not too many people got to enjoy Jim’s fantastic work since this extraordinary smith was with us for all too short a time. For many years before hi...

With all of this new information let’s re-examine the ABS test. A thin blade is great for the rope, a blade with mass but with a strong and streaml...

Now it is time to pull all this together with the heat treatment when dealing with that bend test. There are two things happening when you take a 10â...

Got a lot here so this will be a three parter: The ABS performance test does a good job at balancing out the factors involved so that the knife ...

I have two approaches at the drawing board stage, one evolved from, or was heavily influenced by, the other. All of my knives are drawn out and desig...

Oh, and by the way- Jim, normalize your 1084 blade and then heat from 1475F to 1500F, quench immediately, and you should get a nice 65HRC... that was...