Heat Treating an A2 Steel Knife Blade
Вставка
- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
- Shows me heat treating a knife that I made. The blade is made of A2 tool steel. This is the first knife I have ever made. It has come out pretty sweet. It is a present for my daughter.
See the knife making playlist for all of my knife making videos so far. This is the first knife I have ever made.
I do not make knives like this that I sell. The knives I sell are professionally heat treated at Peter's Heat Treat.
This was the very first knife I made. I made it by hand using hand files to form the bevel. I was pleased with the hardness this method delivered from the stand point of an amateur making a knife for personal use.
I did not experience any distortion or warping of the blade using A2 tool steel.
If I had attempted this with a carbon steel such as 1095 it would have warped and distorted guaranteed. I have tried this with 1095 after having ground the bevels and got quite a bit of warping along the thin edge of the blade.
I started Knife making as a project to make a personal gift for each of my children. The first three knives that I made with hand files to do the shaping of the bevels. This is a long labor intensive process. I did make a wooden bevel filing jig which helped me keep the bevels at the desired angles.
After make the first three knives I decided that for the rest of the knives I would get an inexpensive grinder to speed the process along. I found a Delta 1" x 42" sander on craigslist for $100.00 and bought it. Using this grinding I was able to shave 18 hours off of the time it was taking me to make a knife.
I used the small belt sander to make the rest of the knives. When I was done I realized that I had really enjoyed learning how to make knives and the work involved in making them. But I was not too interested in spending very long times to make them. So I determined to upgrade my equipment. The cost of purchasing the desired equipment was more than I was willing to spend. The other choice available was to build it myself. I already had the skills to build it and had several of the key components sitting around the garage unused. I researched for a while to see what level of performance I wanted from my 2" x 72" sander build. It needed to have plenty of power for heavy stock removal tasks, I wanted it to have speed so I could build knifes quickly and finally it must be versatile so I could use it to do all of the specific types of grinding that may be required in knife making. It turned out fantastic. I have a series of the sander build on my channel if you care to see the design and build.
Next I felt I needed to improve my skills in the area of knife design and production so I could control the cost of my knives to a point that would be affordable to a larger group of potential customers. This meant that for some of my designs I would use CNC machines to do work that I could not do at a comparable price. In order for this to be possible I would need to learn how to get my ideas into CNC compatible format. To make this happen I started learning CAD with DraftSight. It was not nearly as hard as I thought it would be and I kick myself for not learning it much sooner. The CAD use has opened up an entirely new universe of creative options for me as a knife maker. I am not an expert with it by any means but I have been able to use it well enough to come up with some fantastic profiles that can then be economically cut on a CNC laser.
I also outsourced the heat treatment process's. The steels that I use are often referred to a super steels. They require very specific and sometimes complex conditions for proper heat treatment. The temperature ranges for getting best properties are very narrow. Some of them need to be heated in an oxygen free environment to near 2000 degrees then quenched and tempered to -300 degrees. There is no way I could do all of this satisfactorily or competitively on cost.
The areas that I am able to add value competitively to the knife making process is in the design, and finish of the knife. So this is where I have decided to focus my personal knife making energies.
I feel that I have so far accomplished my desired goal of being able to create very high quality original knife designs that are competitively priced.
If your are interested in knife making be sure to see some of my other videos to see how I make the knives. If you might be interested in one of my knives then email me at darylbelnap@yahoo.com.
My knife making has been a adventure and I am pleased to be able to share it with viewers on youtube. Thank you for your interest and support. Please remember to rate, share, and subscribe.
As your first knife and a gift to your daughter I’d say you did fantastic. Honestly I’ve done A2 this way and used professionally heat treated A2 knives and short of chopping through nails the difference in hardness or sharpness was negligible. Sure I may have needed to sharpen mine a little bit more often but what knife maker doesn’t enjoy sharpening a blade while watching tv once in awhile.
Bro don't listen to all the armchair pros in the comments. All you really need to do is increase your cooling speed. Its easy to test to see if yer steel is hard after hardening- file test using an annealed piece versus the hardened piece. Use an air compressor and BLAST the cutting edge first then the rest- you should see the steel immediately turn black from high orange. The end result is a blade that is hard af!! No need to send them out to someone else. I'm sure you've probably already realized this tho!
How hot do you want to get it before letting it cool? Ideally, I'd use a thermometer to check temp until I let it cool.
I’ve done something like this with 1095 and an oil quench. A2 is a great knife or hatchet steel, especially at the high temperature tempering zones, like 900 or so. I ran a batch of tactical knives with A2, but used foil pouches in a treating oven. Tempering at 900, then 850. This was in 2008, and the ones I kept are incredibly sharp and easy to maintain. I think A2 is quite underrated commercially.
loved the video...but im wondering...can u confirm that a file will skate insted of biting on the blade ?? if so pls reply to me
You can send that A2 blade to Tru Grit and they can properly heat treat it for you for $10 +$2 for stainless steel wrap.
What you did is take a good piece of A2 and make it less then what it could be. If you want to heat treat like that you should use 1084.
+walkonking Thanks for watching. Read the video description. I typically use Peter's Heat Treat and get them done for around $3.00 - $4.00 per blank.
They don't charge that for single blade. In bulk yes, but not everyone has 20 blades to send at a time
true.
You just de-carbonized the hell out of that blade, wrap it in stainless steel and buy a temperature controlled electric furnace, heat up the blade with the furnace cold to start, pre-heat soak at 1450 for 20 minutes, then raise to 1775 to austenize for 45 minutes, remove and let cool in open air till red heat is visibly gone. cut open stainless steel bag and let cool hanging in air till its just cool enough for you to hold then temper right away at 370-425 for 2 hours, your done.
+TrueMetalWarlord Agreed it is not the preferred method. I typically send my blades to Peter's Heat Treat. This was one of my first knives for person use that I was experimenting with. The video is not a how to do it. Just a how I tried it.
@@BigIronTV yeah man, you didnt decarbonize anything- another armchair pro chiming in lol!
im a toolmaker and yes you can flame harden a2 just do 2 draws on it
Good to know!
How do you know when you have reached 1800 ?
+zacatecano1986 It was a guess. I really don't recommend this method. Although it did harden the blade quit hard. This was the first knife I made. I did it using a hand file to file the bevels. Took like 23 hours. I wanted to make something for my kids to have. After doing a few of them I decided I liked making knives so I built the sander and kept going. It has been a year so far since I made this one. Now I use a professional heat treat company.
This is not how you heat treat A2. Please do yourself a favor and send it out to be professionally heat treated next time.
+Arbiter Customs Hi, thanks for watching and commenting. As I mentioned below I know this was one of my very first knives that I made by hand. You sound like you know something so you may also know that heat treating a single knife is not cheap. Peter's charges $75.00 for a single knife plus shipping. That is more than I was prepared to spend at the time as I was just trying out knife making to make gifts for my kids. I have since decided to make knives to sell. My process is much different than what I used on these first knives. Now I can send in large enough batches to heat treat to make it affordable.
Ahh, I am sorry for jumping to conclusions. I looked at some of your videos. Nice work.
I could not find your channel. I would like to see some of your knives.
What kind of torch is that? Model or info where to get one?
Google search rosebud torch
So how hard does that make the blade
+Isaac cushenbery (cush) I do not know the exact hardness number. But when I tried to drill it to enlarge a hole after heat treat it ruined a high speed steel drill bit. So whatever the HSS bit is it was at least that hard. If you really want to get the most performance from A2 it should be sent to a professional. I typically use Peter's Heat Treat for the knives that I sell other than carbon steel.
What type of torch is that?
Oxygen and propane fueled with a multi-flame heating torch head.
www.google.com/search?q=heating+torch+head&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiGioLuvf_MAhXJ7D4KHcUYAWQQ_AUICCgC&biw=1366&bih=681
thanks i think i need one
they are pretty handy for heating anything that needs heated.
+BigIronTV yeah I don't really have a way of heating my knifes but I can't find any easy to use stainless would you have any recommendations?
Easy to use and cheap? I don't. I get my stainless from New Jersey Steel Baron and it is expensive. His prices are still the best around.
not even close to how you heat treat A2. oxygen eats carbon at high temps in ALL steel., sense that what steel is, is iron and carbon(steel) and sometimes other elements (alloy's),. im Shure the A2 you did got harder than it was before but just looking at how you did it its far far from what it could be, david boey has an awesome beginners book for the basics, for more advanced i recommend going as far as "metallurgy fundamentals" by Daniel A. brandt / JC Warner. 5th edition or so.
Baloo Bear This is not a how to video. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Baloo Bear A2 is air hardening BUT it should be sealed in stainless heat treat foil and done in an electrically controlled oven...otherwise the external will be soft.
Agreed. This was how I did the first couple of knives that I ever made. I also used hand files to make them. Since then I have learned much and my technique and process have improved. I built my own 2" x 72" sander and now I send all my blanks out for professional heat treatment. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Sckarekrow ouch! hahaha thanks
BigIron dont listen to this really man. Trust me there aint no air getting into your steel lol lol. Even if the first atom-thick layer on the surface is slightly decarbed (and I mean slightly) you just gonna grind that off in final grinding after hardening anyhow. Tellin ya man, steel is way easier than people think. just my 2 cents after using A2 and----- wait for it...... actually testing the hardness after! gasp!! lol testing??? lolol literally not rocket science. You do you man!
Annealing does not harden....lol