Which Quenching Oil is Best for Knives?
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- Опубліковано 18 лип 2021
- Which oil do you use for which steel? Can you quench too fast? These questions and more answered!
My corresponding article on this subject with more details and discussion: knifesteelnerds.com/2021/07/1...
Knife Engineering book: www.amazon.com/Knife-Engineer...
Knife Steel Nerds Patreon: / knifesteelnerds
Canola vs Mineral Oil study: pure.unibague.edu.co/en/publi...
Inconel probe video: • Demonstration of a Coo...
Jominy test video: • Jominy End Quench Test...
This. This is the best thing I’ve found in many years of funneling content into my system. The good stuff tends to be much higher preferred -/ this is the GOOD STUFF. THIS IS QUALITY CONTENT. Thoroughly impressed with your amount of knowledge, your scientific approach, and your demeanor. This is really good content and above par for the course. Thank you.
Greetings from Brazil. First in the country to buy your book.
You are a real boon to the knife-making community. Thank you! I'm curious about different quenching procedures, like quenching in water for two seconds, then sticking it in oil in order to avoid cracking but still being able to get hardness. You know, things like that. Also quenching with agitation and quenching without agitation. Maybe even ideal edge thickness before quenching. There's also water with salt and water without salt. And then there's peanut oil. I'm curious about best quenching procedures when doing a Hamon in order to get hard hardness and contrast without cracking the blade. I mean, you could avoid cracking the blade by keeping it thick, but I it only hardens on the outside, then you have to grind the hardness away. So there's got to be an ideal thickness to avoid cracking but still having a hard edge.
these are great questions many of us would like to know...I'm willing to bet many of the answers are
"trade secrets" for most skilled knife makers.
once we find knowledge most people don't have or would have to experiment for years to discover is info many would take to their grave.
but yeah I'm interested in a quick initial water quench technique myself
Excellent, you delivered the cold hard Quenching Facts in a highly informative way, I learned and you got another SUB.
Saving this to my knife making folder! Thank you for sharing your scientific knowledge and wisdom. I've only made a couple fixed blades from already hardened steel and then tempered them, but I plan on working with 1085 and 1095 to start out from scratch. This helps a lot and will probably help me avoid a lot of costly mistakes in the quenching realm. Well done!
Thank you so much for doing actual experiments to document the effectiveness of quench options. I started with canola, as many do, but am now convinced that a proper HT oven and Parks 50 are what I need to get the most out of the 1084 I generally use for knives. Sure, I've made some decent knives without proper soak times and without the proper quenching solution, but I don't want to make knives that are only "decent."
Love that this community has someone like you… as a lover of the scientific model I really appreciate the work you do👍
I was so glad and surprised to see you on this platform! Thanks a lot for your work!❤️🖤
Thank you! The only one explaining this things using science and experimentation... Not just "ive been doing it like this all my life " thanks
This is the explanation and information that I've been looking for for 5 years. I've read multiple articles on hardening but you not only explained it and provided specific for common steels. Outstanding.
Thank you so much for your contribution to the community! 😊
Thanks for the awesome video! Ironically a group of us were talking about this very subject. Great to get some clarification!
These videos of yours are a pure gold. Thank you.
Yes! Yes! Finally a video where someone used a scientific method with charts on hardness of quenching in different media! Thank you so much! I've been looking for someone to do this for ever! I would have myself, but the $$ and not having the time has been an issue. Great work!!
You’re a legend!! Thank you so much for all this info! Bought your book as a result!
Absolutely wonderful information as always thank you for all you done for all of us knife makers just starting out your book and videos are absolutely gold in my opinion.
I have been doing some research on quench oils, and your video by far has been the most helpful of any information out there. Love the chart of metals to preferred quench types.
Thanks Larrin for your time and for sharing.
Regards
Davy Thomas
Very useful stuff, as always. Thanks for all the work you do!
Hank you for putting this together. Every knife maker can benefit from your studies
Read the book and lots of the articles, very much looking forward to watching the videos. Lots of learning so far and more to come no doubt 😊
Thank you! I was just googling this last night! Happy to hear from the expert.👍
OUTSTANDING! You answered a lot of questions I had and some I didn't know to ask. I have been using Olive oil and it seems to be faster than canola... but I think I'm just going to bite the bullet and buy parks. Thanks again Larin!
If you going to use olive oil, mix a little salt with it and dip your bread in it, it's good, 😃. Ukrainian friend introduced me to it.
I was curious how soaps would work??? Made of whatever oil, then lye or potassium hydroxide if made from burned wood. Breaking the surface tension of the water. As this fellow said, he's a metallurgist, not a chemist or such.
Which these industrial oils, if some were converted to soap, maybe it could have benefit. 😃, which you have the train of thought to find out. There's books on thermal dynamics and heat transfer. Just mentioning as one day you might stumble across something.
I would love to see what would happen if you floated a gallon of quenching oil on top of water so that when you went to quench you could insert the steel into the oil only part for the first couple of seconds and then push down further to get to the water if it would help achieve a higher hardness as well as maybe prevent some of the issues from the extremely fast quenching of water.
I used to do that, mainly because there was a hole in the roof of my old shed and my quench bucket would get water in it when it rained.
You have made something which was really needed and precious. God bless you.
Loved every second!!! Please consider making this a weakly or monthly vid! 🙏
Fantastic video mate. I’m so glad people like you exist.
Although I feel way out of my league watching this, I thoroughly enjoy scientific results. Thank you for all you do for the community Dr. Thomas.
I learned alot of new stuff form this video, thank you for all the effort!
Love it. Hope you put out more
Larin, I too use olive oil...been a while since I've made a knife but as I'm getting ready to jump back in, it's great to have you out there with top quality information. Hope to visit you when your home at you're Mom and Dads one of these days...
I hope you can find the time to make more UA-cam videos and I love the stuff your doing for the knife world
Stunning data presentation. Thank you!
I love what you do. I am learning a LOT. Thank you
I’m so glad you got video!! Love it!!
Just so I have this straight, you have shown that the best method of quenching 1095 is water. I trust in your science here but unfortunately there is not much guidance on youtube for 1095 heat treating. And most videos show quenching 1095 in various oils. Glad I found a definitive answer in your video. Thank you much for all the testing!
That's nice to know, and cheaper than chips.
If you are making something very thin in 1095, oil would be safer. A thin 1095 blade will likely crack if quenched in water. But for thicker projects water can work. I think some people put soap in the water to help prevent the vapor jacketing
Fantastic video and fantastic work and testing performed! Thank you! Right now I am new to the hobby and have only used 5160 and vegetable oil. I'll be moving to parks 50 soon because I want to use other steels also.
Thoroughly enjoyed you covered all steels I am likely to use thank you
Thank you for sharing this information, and I look forward to reading your book!
Great video, thanks for doing this Larrin!
You answered a question that was asked so many times! I guess quenching oil demand will go up now. 😁 Thanks for this study! 👏
Wow, a credible, unbiased catalog of knife steel with ratings, all in 1 place. Now I won't have to dig up and parse anecdotal information to make decisons!
Very useful info! Time to reevaluate my quenchant!
Hello Dr. Thomas. A lot of beginners (myself included) are using 01 as a starting steel as recommended by many of the pros giving advice to beginners (for stock removal knives). Canola performed well in one category according to your testing....O1. 🙂 A good beginner oil to go along with a good beginner steel, then switch to Parks 50 as you gain experience and move on to more advanced steels. Thanks for the huge amount of time that you obviously put into this testing. It's great to have some actual data to help choose the quenching method and medium. I bought your first book when it first came out and have read a good portion of it. It's a fantastic reference guide for any knife maker that wants to get a little more serious about making knives. I'm still in the "have fun" stage. 🙂 Took me a while to figure out you had a UA-cam channel, but I'm a subscriber now. Cheers from Canada, Eh?
Pure gold! Thanks for making your way to the Tube :)
Mind. Blown. Phenomenal video sir. Thank you much.
Thank you so much for this great video
Great research, thanks!
Great vid and that book is amazing, everyone who makes knives should consider giving it a read, IMO.
Excellent video
Very useful information. Thank you.
Thank you, Larrin. You’re knowledge is incredible and your website is invaluable. I saw your interview at one of the recent blade shows talking about Magnacut. Congratulations! I’ve only been making knives for a year or so and it’s going really well. I hope to get my hands on some Magnacut one day, lol. I would be very interested in you doing hardening tests on some stainless steels. I’m very fond of AEB-L. I usually plate quench and temper around 365 after a LN2 soak, but I’m not sure if that’s the best way. Any advice on that would be greatly appreciated. I’ll sub on patreon and reach out there. Thank you again!
You probably just saved my first 1095 knife. I was going to use motor oil.
Hello; Excellent video. Every knifemaker should at least have your book; I bought it twice (one for on my bookshelf, the other for in the workshop). I mostly use 1.2442 (my favorite steel), 1.2695, niolox and vanax superclean. You can probably tell I'm European and mostly make kitchen knives :D
Larrin, Thank You!
I am in total agreement that canola is a sub-par quenchant for 1084 (or any fast quenchant steel), but your data seems to indicate that you could only achieve 41 hrc at .003 distance from the surface. This is what is going to set people off and make people question this test. Certainly canola isn't as good, but it can attain higher than 50 hrc on a regular basis. How could it perform so low on your test? It would be interesting to see the left side of that curve from surface hardening all the way to 0.03 depth to see if you're actually attaining the 50 or 55hrc that canola users see when doing tests.
I have no real way of responding to anecdotes about how hard someone else’s 1084 got with the same quenchant. If they overheated the steel it has higher hardenability. If the 1084 had higher Mn it will be harder. If it was thinner than 1/4” it would reach higher hardness, etc, etc. Of course if they aren’t properly checking hardness then the discussion is pointless. I laid out the process I used and this was my result. I can’t change it just because someone is unhappy about it.
@@KnifeSteelNerds Let's be clear, I'm not questioning the use of canola at all, its a poor quenchant, nor am I asking you to change your data. What people are questioning is that it seems to say that at 0.03" depth, the HRC was only 40. I'm asking what it was at the surface. Clearly you can get higher than 40hrc at the surface of 1084 with canola, is it dropping off that fast with depth is the question. If so, this is major new information. Did you gather any data at depths above 0.03 or just what you showed?
@@TyrellKnifeworks im not a knifemaker just like enjoying videos, but could it be because of the surface grinder is heating up the metal, maybe Knife Steel Nerds didnt cool it while surface grinding, again im not a knife maker just asking could it be that
@@sran9492then that would affect all the other samples..
He didn't overheat it like most forging guys.. plus even parks 50 struggled with 1095 and w2. Low temperature austenizing for 20 minutes is a lot different than forge quench at higher temp
Nice job. A cool follow-up video would be interesting to see how some air quenching steels behave in oil versus plates versus still air.
440C quenched in hot 130 F AAA works very good wrapped in its stainless foil wrap. I use AAA for everything except old Nicholson files from garage sales. Those I use 180 F water and push-pull it up and down, do not wave sideways EVER when quenching anything. Unless of course you want a curve in your blade.
Breaking canola hearts!
GOOD JOB, THANKS
Thank you so much!
I'm gonna use peanut oil
Here in Brazil, most of the knifmakers use diesel as quench oil, I use as well and have very good results. But I don't have this data about the diesel like you did in the video, he would be great to see the diesel in some of your tests. thank you a lot for share all this knowledge.
Nice video!
In general which is the best oil to get for doing a variety of steel.. I think you should try some of the old quenching methods such as olive oil animal fat coconut oil and a mixture of all of them and maybe even some used vegetable oil from a fryer
This type of stuff is why I’m going to school to get a degree in metallurgy!
I'm a retired bio/engineer, and you'll have to get an engineering degree 1st. Be sure and research the field you want to go into, the maker of this video works for a steel company doing car skins, this is his hobby lol. He engineered the new stainless cutlery steel CPM Magnacut. Look it up, I believe there are several test videos of it on YT.
Thanks, man. You are the best! I have to try to fiddle with sunflower oil. Because it's the most common around here
Man this was great. Unfortunately I've been doing it all wrong apparently lol. Thank you for doing this video! 👊
Do you plan to do any tests of "modified oils" such a cutting AAA with kerosene to speed it up to a fast oil or "super quench" brine etc? Would be great to see some of these things "Mythbusted" thanks for the hard work 👍
My father was a metallurgist and worked for us steel. Unfortunately, he never talked about his work or his discipline. So I know nothing about this. But I am very interested in axe and knife making procedures and learned a lot from this video. Thanks.
What was his position and in what location did he work?
@@KnifeSteelNerds he started working for Tennessee Coal & Iron in Birmingham Alabama about 1940. When us steel bought this, he was sent to Pittsburg for 1 year. That was about 1950. Then he came back to Birmingham and worked in the tin mill quality control about 25 years. I don’t know his position but he was in management and had to live in the mill when labor went on strike. Funny - I have become a strong labor supporter.
Thank you for this. Mental retention is little because of hard tempering of brain, but it's in memory for recollection later, sort of like a primer.
Superb video 👌🏻 Thank you for taking the time to do the leg work and share your results - invaluable to a maker such as myself. Perhaps put a drop of any oil on your evenheat door latch 😂
Is peanut oil pretty much the same as canola?
Wow, so for our beginner statting out with basic carbon steel, humble water is better than you'd expect.
DUDE! YER FREEKIN AWESOME! Thanks for all you rwork but let me ask a question.....thanks.
I see many smiths full temper a knife then toss it in an oven at 400 for 2 hours. WHAT DOES THAT DO TO THE STEEL/ TEMPER???????? Thank you
Thanks Larrin! Could you test DOT3 brake fluid as a quenchant? I suspect it to be a fast oil, but I'm not sure.
Based on your articles and the video I've now got Parks 50. I would loved to see a brine solution tested as well. I've read some knowledgeable bladesmiths say brine is more controlled that plain water. Perhaps that's the "hard water" you mention? Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.
Brine is a bit different than hard water. Brine is supposed to help prevent vapor jacket formation for a more even quench. From the perspective of how fast it is brine we might not learn much as I would expect everything to be full hardness just like the plain water. But for making knives if you try it out you will find if you are having issues with warps and cracks.
I tested brine against water, and brine was victorious.
Would love to see a similar video that includes salt bath quenching.......
Great video. Really enjoyed watching it and I learned something from it. I do have a question that I hope you'll be able to answer though. I just completed a knife in 1095 and quenched it in a mixture of canola and peanut oil. I got a hard blade with that mixture. The blade is approximately 3/16" thick and even post temper it's extremely difficult to file, and I have good Nicholson files. So my question is, did I just get lucky, or is there some other reason my blade was able to harden with the oil I used? Regardless, after watching this I plan to get some Parks 50 as soon as I'm able to.
My understanding of this is that Dr. Thomas is not saying that canola oil can't or won't harden your knife, but that canola oil limits your ability to get maximum performance out of your steel. Canola works up to a point, but you're not getting all of the hardness that you could get if you used a more appropriate oil.
@@ShawnsWorkshopOr water, for that matter. Just need to temper the harder one softer to be equivalent. The one that quenched harder and then got softened is usually a lot tougher.
Love it.....so much 😁
Excellent vid, lots of great info provided.
So, at approx 17:20 regarding High Hardenability Steels you say that slow oils work best BUT...
.... it doesn't mean we cannot use fast quench oils or even water if you're careful
So by using water in this case....what do you mean by..."If you're careful"
(Not removing the blade too soon?, Not preheating too high of Temp? Not using Tap Water?)
1. Could you outline what would be a "Careful Method" for using water, with such steels.
2. With water, What would be a "Careless" method compared to a Careful one?
I think just good design, not too thin or brittle, be careful to quench it fast and evenly. Most guys use soap and salt in the water to make it vapour jacket less for a more even cooling. If you're using simple steels like 1095 and W2, use water. 5160 or 80crv2 you might get away with a vegetable oil if it's thin enough, and 52100 or O2 look to be hardenable enough to use canola oil fine enough.
Sent here by Mr Shabazz.
I have heat-treated thousands of blades that are oil Hardening,most 1/16 th material. A thought which I intend to try is to have 2 quench tanks ,1to emerse for a couple of seconds and the other to cool to handling Temp, I'm curious.
I would love it if you addressed quenching in blood. I've read a lot of old wives tales and seen a lot of ancient texts about 15th century slave owners plunging hot steel through their slaves in order to quench these 'bloodblades'.
The quench might not be great but the enchantment is legendary.
I use Houghton Quench G. Kinda got some from work.
Cool ! Could you be motivated to test various common light industrial oils ? 0W motor, ATF, Diesel fuel, iso 10 hydraulic fluid, transformer oil (might be candidate ...), EDM fluid etc. I think that would be an ENORMOUS gain of information. The quench oils gotta be blended from common feedstocks and esspecially transformer and EDM fluids have the same requirements in terms of removing heat fast without breaking down or bubbling, foaming too much....
you ever heard of HOUGHTO-QUENCH® K? Apparently (nearly) as good/fast as Parks 50. Reason I ask is that it is avaialble here in Canada in a 5 gallon pail for $225+- plus shipping and sales tax...hard to find many options in small quantities. Thanks.
Have you passed this data to ASME, Thant you for all your hard work.
What about concentrated urine
(I heard it worked)
Or old motor oil?
My plan is to use the stainless steel part of a windshield wiper blade.
Forge it to shape and drop it the best liquid to make it strong but not break and yet a little springy.
1mm thick and 4 mm wide
Any idea?
Is olive oil significantly different than canola oil for hardening?
Hey do any of these oils ever expire or become less effective with time or use?
Sorry my english isnt very good, when you said beyond 1/8 inch water hardening did you mean by that thicker or thinner metal 18:00, thanks in advance
Which oil is fast oil? Can you tell me what type is Engine oil like used in electric transformal?
Great video. Just curious as to whether you heated up the canola oil to 130F or more for the experiment? This is something I have been told to do to get the best results out of canola. Thanks in advance for any thoughts you may have.
Yes
Man, eye opening. Just a home cook that enjoys knives, but love following along. Based on these new experiments, which quenchant would you lean toward for Magna Cut?
MagnaCut has high hardenability so plate quenching is my general recommendation. It is slower than oil, faster than air alone. Helps to maintain flatness.
@@KnifeSteelNerds thank you kindly Larrin
hi atm im using new 5w40 fully synthetic engine oil as it wat i can get, but after watching this make me think that i should get the proper oil. how do u think this would compare to parks 50 for eg.?
What about heating the oils to different tempretures?
I found that at least with canola the oil temp has a very big impact
Did you know that canola has a shelf life so to speak? After being used so many times it breaks down and changes how it quenches. Also you're right on oil temps, canola for 01 steel needs to be 125-130 to work the best, but you might be better off with peanut oil rather than canola, it seems to quench faster.
Could engine coolant be a fast one with less vapor blanket?
where dos peanut oil fall on the nickel ball test chart?
Question (or clarification) The "A" in A2 tool steel indicates Air hardening. The "W" in W2 tool steel indicates water quench, the "O" in O2 tool steel indicates oil quench. What does the "D" in D2 tool steel indicate?
The D is for “die steels” which refers to their typical application not quench speed.
@@KnifeSteelNerds
Thank you Sir. BTW... I have a TJ Schwarz Overland fixed blade being made in your CPM Magnacut and wanted to thank you for all of your metallurgical endeavors.
Hello again Dr Thomas. I caught your recent interview with Blade HQ (Blade Show) and enjoyed what was discussed. Relating to my first question about D2 relating to O2, and A2. Does the "2" in the three steel types derive the same value in all three?
The “2” just means it is the second steel in the group. So the second oil hardening steel (O2), the second die steel (D2), etc. But the order doesn’t mean anything.
Thank you Sir.