Strong work, my favorite part is how you used solid testing to rule out the different nuisances people hear repeated but never prove. Improving the knife community one video at a time, cheers.
You are citing Föll !!! NICE ! I had the honor of hearing his material science for engineers lectures shortly before he retired. He was a monster. Insanely knowledgable, funny and with a seriously dirty sense of humor but dressed in oldschool buisiness attire.....
Thanks very much for this video Larrin, and your book which is a really great resource. I'm in the process of heat treating a chopper I made out of pattern welded steel. I used 80crv2 (Jantz), and 15n20. It's very confusing trying to figure out the right method to heat treat since it's 2 different steels with differing properties. Since I wasn't sure, and for 15n20 your book says to austenitize at 1475 for 10 min which is close to the recommendation for 80crv2, I'm going with the 80crv2 rec. I do have a new Jen Ken vertical air bath kiln, which is AWESOME, so that should help. I've already completed the normalizing and heat treating steps, and will quench it tomorrow in parks 50, then planning to temper at 400 for 2 hrs x 2. Thanks again for the good advice! PS. I'd love to see a video outlining some general rules/recommendations for heat treating pattern welded steel in the future, but I know that must be a seriously tough subject to tackle!
Your vids, when played at 0.5% play speed... Knife making hints & tips with Terance McKenna! Very easy to watch, highly informative, and gets a👍. Great video!
@@kentsanders7127 Contrats. The edge geometry and heat treat matter more than the steel, so now you can do everything right and put shame to most commercial knives
great video,very good work,precise empiric and clearly explained, thank you for sharing your knoledge!! i bought your book and i love it,you have to make a much bigger one,take your time,awesome job man!!!
Thank goodness - I have pretty good luck with O1 and 26c3 in a forge, but without looking further, a little overhard and undertough for 1084 (it's not something useful for tools when O1 is available). I've also never seen any beginner get results that are anything other than subpar with 1084 and almost everyone refuses to buy parks 50 because of the cost.
(almost everyone meaning every beginner. anyone who fails to get high hardness with water hardening steel over and over will buy parks and be shocked at how the results are suddenly good).
My ultimate video from you would be forging high carbide steels or forging high red hot hardness steels. Some of them seem to have a very narrow forming window. And cmon, how cool would a forged 10v blade be. Also, have you discussed diamond edge knives? The friction forged D2 company.
One further comment, just came to mind. Maybe you could do 55Si7/EN 45/9260/modern spring steel one day ? With the ca 2 % of Silicon we have an oil hardening steel (gets "fully hard" in canola, i dont have an RC meter, i believe the critical time is around 10s in the TTT) that does not contain carbide formers and should therefore not have memory - but maybe new surprizes! I vaguely remember reading that Si steel have no TME but may have in some cases fairly low toughness for temper below the "blue range". Another interesting bit is that it does not harden from a quick forge heat at nonmagnetic, even in water. It needs to be orange/900°C. I have read that Silicon being a light element and therefore a lot of atoms at 2% acts as a diffusion reductor so badly that it retards carbon dissolution. Its a really interesting metal and there is little info on its properties as a tool steel and in artisanal use because it is not commonly sold in small quitity for tool and die shops. Given that this is simultaneously quite possibly the second most used artisanal blacksmithing tool steel of current times after 1045 because almost every blacksmith, developed or developing world has some and uses or used it at some point....i think that video would find a lot of viewers....
Very thorough work super work, a few remarks 1. HRC below 20 is not defined, my experience with tempering knifesteel for best resistance to edge chipping is temper at slightly higher temperatures ie 260C twice for 30 minuttets.
So much info packed in 24 min! Why not do an annealing stage using a forge and vermiculite? I see you also recommend tempilsticks, would those digital thermocouplers people use in forges be acceptable for normalizing and annealing?
I'm a total newbie to knife making. I cut a blank from 4130 HT, ready to heat treat. Cheap forge coming next week. Carbon content on 4130 is .25 to .33, sounds like I can quench in water and achieve a low RC hardness. I can probably cut ten blanks from the piece that I have. Question, waste of time or keep learning as I go? Knife Engineering is on the way. Thanks for your time.
@@KnifeSteelNerds I appreciate the response. I found a piece of 4130 HT at an estate sale 40"x8"x.125". I've been wanting to try this, that steel started me on the journey. I don't think you can get a good heat treat on the steel, but should be good enough to get comfortable with the blank and handle making process. From what I read, you're lucky to get a 50-52 rc hardness with 4130. I know I'm talking above my pay grade, I'm at ground zero. Thanks!
I would have liked to see a tension test of these materials. Especially to see the difference between each step, from beginning to the end. But it would add to the cost with a tensile tester and preparing the specimens. The tester might no be that expensive for the small specimens you are working with. Maybe you could find one used?
The laser is just for aiming. It is an infrared thermometer, measures infrared radiation. Usually an area of about 1 to 8. As in 1 inch diameter at 8 inches distance. The area at distance will be listed in the instructions.1 to 12 is also common.
Sir, can you vlog about the numbers of all kinds of leaf spring? How to identify the kinds of steel that we use for jungle bolo, I mean the strong steel doesn't crack any kinds of strong wood or even the nail. Thanks.
First of all thank you very much for your work. It is an amazing contribution to the knife maker community. - I'm about to start playing around with this steel. I am stock removal and I use an evenheat oven for heat treating so I have no problem reaching and maintaining temperature/time. Your results here lead me to understand that if I want the best outcome from my 80CrV2 from NJSB then I should still normalize and anneal in order to get the spheridized structure before final quench. Am I understanding correctly? I'd like to get the best I can out of my 80CrV2 for general purpose small blades.
Crazy how science just lays out a road map. Being able to read it is another thing. Sorry if this sounds dumb, just sounds like there's still a lot of guess work being used.
W2 please. Not much good info on w2 out there. Im down to w2, 80crv2, and 52100. Likely itll b all 3 for different types of knives. Buying your book, cant wait to get it. Thx
Could you make a small "knife" showing us the difference between brittle steel good steel and too soft steel? How they are so sharpen, both how easy but also how sharp you can make them. And the edge retention test and a toughness test of the edge? I do not know what my knifes are made of, how hard or brittle they are, but if I know how a hard steel and soft steel acts then maybe I could understand what types of knifes I have.
Love your book and your videos. You've done a yeoman's job in educating the knife community and separating myth from fact using the scientific method. And congrats on your success with Magnacut. And a special thanks for making intelligence cool again! 😜
Thanks for the very interesting and enlighting video. One question, I have regarding to archieve the finest possible grain structure on a steel. What if I have a rather coarse sphereodized 80CrV2 / 1.2235 / L2 steel and I perform a double hardening procedure instead of cycling the nomalize and annealing process? Would double or even tripple heating and quenching result in even finer and finer grain structure and may be a quicker process?
Awesome vid...question....I have some 80crv2 and 52100...stock removal...I'm using a propane forge with thermocouple and also a laser to get the temps as good as possible...is there a need to normalize and grain refinement before Austinize?...thankyou
Because the forge heat treatment is designed to work with no soak time by using the pearlite starting microstructure because people get in trouble by overheating in a forge. In a furnace I prefer an annealed microstructure which allows more control over the final properties by adjusting austenitizing temperature. From an annealed starting structure a soak of 10+ minutes makes it much less sensitive to small changes in soak time or stock thickness.
@@KnifeSteelNerds OK. I can hold my vertical forge +/- 5 degrees anywhere from about 1375 to 2200. With stock removal steel would I be better off to give 80CrV a bit of a soak prior to quenching? (On alloy/type steel I use Quench A from Great Lakes Oil at about 150 degrees. It's a bit of a replacement for the old Texaco A) I would appreciate your thoughts.
A soak of 10-15 minutes would likely be beneficial, yes. I have seen examples where too short of a soak time leads to both lower hardness and lower toughness, such as with 8670: knifesteelnerds.com/2021/04/26/how-to-heat-treat-8670/ Some knifemakers are afraid of soak time and will scoff at anything over 5 minutes because they are afraid of grain growth but as long as you are at the right temperature that is not an issue.
I have so many questions for you. I studied metallurgy and I've been blacksmithing for close to thirty years and I would like to collaborate on some different questions with you
If he has publicized his heat treatment with temperatures, times, etc then I’m happy to discuss it but otherwise it doesn’t make much sense to spend time on it.
What do you think about correcting warps with multiple tempering cycles while clamping the knife to a straight fixture? Tyrell Knifeworks says that you can theoretically do endless tempering cycles at the same temperature to dial in the straightness. Is this true or does one loose some hardness after a while? I just tried this with two O2 chefs knives wich came out dead straight, but it seems like they lost quite a lot of hardness afterwards. But bear in mind that I am one of the imbeciles that heat treat in a forge. May god forgive my soul.
lovely videos. Thank you. Had any opinion on Kilns for nerdy newbies? I want to get into knife making as a personal hobby. The one you have in your video may actually be the one I was looking at, Evenheat kh-418 120v 2200F, but I want to make sure I won't need to upgrade later. Should I even be considering such a pricey Kiln to start? I have a CNC, belt sharpers, laser engravers, etc -- but maybe a blow torch would be enough for my needs? Anyways, keep it up :)
I have the Evenheat LB 22.5. It is a very good furnace. If you can’t afford a furnace yet I would recommend sending out for heat treatment rather than a blowtorch.
6:40 why use tempilstick for forge HT? cheap thermocouples are $3-5, meters $10-20. 22:30 is the 2x2h rec for 300F [148.89 °C] or in general? seems fairly long for a simple steel. assuming I have an accurate tempering oven or use salt or hot oil to temper, could I use 2x 30 Min instead? i.e. is this purely about consistency or do I lose out on something else by not going the full 2h? 23:10 more challenging = takes longer for the finer structure to austenitize? could you get around that by plate quenching once so you start from martensite instead of pearlite? I'm using a coal forge with a pipe muffle and copper spacers and a thermocouple for repeatability, getting 5 min even heat is possible but 10 is stretching it.
It’s not impossible to do shorter tempers, no. But there are certain things that happen with more time like transforming retained austenite. I think you have the time.
@@KnifeSteelNerds where can I read more about that topic? a graph or something would be nice. I could just believe you and do the 2h, but then I haven't really learned anything new.
Thanx for these interesting videos Larrin! I recently watched a a JOE X destroy the Sissipuukko M95 made from 80CrV2. The knife broke after a few hits to another steel pipe, or something. That blade is 4,2mm thick. Would you say that that is a normal break of that kind of blade in that situation, or do you feel it is a heat treatment mistake? The link of that video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3_A0GpZDSSg.html
Hey man, this is awesome... thanks for breaking this down. I really enjoyed your book as well! I'd love to see a simple broken down video like this for every common steel! lol
I make professional grade throwing knives for no spin and half spin throwing. I use two steels 80crv2 and 5160. Both are super tuff and do not suffer snapped tips or blunted tips. Ive stuck mine into cinder blocks even with no damage done
I've been using 80crv2 for some time now. Also, having a kiln gives me excellent results. Using the processes you've mentioned, is exactly what I do. I use Parks 50 as my quench oil, and the result is excellent in toughness and edge retention. I really appreciate your research, as it definitely helps me become a better Smith
How fast do you bring the furnace up to temp? If just doing stock removal knives what process do you recommend I use? I also use 3/16 steel so would the formula change? I have park50 oil as well.
Most of the Puukko blade blanks I get from European countries is 80CrV2. I really like that steel for buschraft blades esp scandivex and convex grinds.
Why spheriodizing? What is the benefit of having the material react sluggish to the austenitizing? Is it just retained carbides? The S-word is my Nemesis when designing short cycle heat treatments in my day job with Lasers, Ebeams and HF... ;)
what if I buy Terava Skrama heat treated to 58-59 and I want it harder? Can I go from their heat treatment easily to 62 by 2-step solution? How would you do it?
Thanks for all that info. I'm a begginer weekend knifemaker and appreciate all tips make me improve my skills. I maybe made a mistake but I bought a laser thermometer to check temps, but i'm not sure which is the emmisivity of Red Hot steel to set it. Your answer will be very appreciated. Sorry if my english is not very good.
A muffle can help with temperature uniformity but I have also seen overheated steel from bladesmiths with a muffle because the thermocouple wasn’t seeing the same temperature as the blade. So it isn’t a cure-all.
Dude I love my winkler woodsman but I’m always conflicted that I straight up spent $380 on a knife… and on a knife with a steel that as Larrin says is so “boring” lmao. It’s a true workhorse of a user knife but Jesus Christ I spent $380 on a low alloy carbon steel. Still, performance wise, no complaints so far and it takes a stupid sharp edge so easily, which I guess is why Winkler likes to make his knives with 80CrV2.
@@andresgamba1478 the Woodsman is an Awesome WINKLER blade. $380 is a lot of money, but it’s a WINKLER. Mine was $350 , and I am glad I spent it. I have 4 knives
@@andresgamba1478 Winkler and RMJ using 80CrV2 is completely corrupt. This is for their own ease of manufacture. Their prices are immoral for what you're getting. RMJ also uses 3V and Magnacut - so they defiantly know better - though they charge even more ridiculous prices for their 3V offerings.
@@mlentsch then don’t buy them, what can I say? The steel a knife uses is not the only factor in its price, nor is it even the most expensive factor in knife production. Me and a buddy of mine who both carry a winkler as users will swear by them but I can understand your conception that a knife in 80CrV2 shouldn’t be that expensive, even if I disagree.
Thanks for the video, was contemplating purchasing some 80crv2, still thinking about it. I purchased your book, and have been selectively going through it. I’m new to knife making, and am amazed how steel can change in a solid state through different heating processes. Don’t have a heat treating oven so will be using your suggested methods for heat treating until I can get one. Once again, thank you!
I'm glad you put this up because in a brief dalliance I had doing some fairly basic 80CRV2 knives I did find it a fairly complicated metal compared to say 1084 and this has gone a way to explaining were I found a few hang-ups along the way during my (furnace controlled) heat treating. This is going back before I had your book and was sort of aggregating info on it from other sources and the manufacturer. Not to be too dismissive of the metal I did reach a point that in some ways its not offering a lot in terms of some areas and quite surpassed in others by high alloy-mid carbon sort of equivalent applications and that literally for me came down to processing and repeatable results. Some of my 80CRV2 was really very good, others are just mediocre and it wasn't really very consistent, the other sad nail in the no-go for it was that for some ungodly reason it just corrodes so quickly! Dunno exactly why, but I could literally do some wet sanding on say a piece of 26C3, dry it off well and put it aside, come back 2 days later and it'll be fine. The 80CRV2 was developing the first stages of rust on the side I wasn't actively working on, do that side and by the time it flipped back over it had started rusting again on the side I'd just first done: Which by all means can be worked around and treated, fiddling with and so on, but there's just some extra things you don't need in your life. Thanks again for this one
