Up And Running

Took my 100# propane tank in to be checked out because I thought it leaked at the valve. Turns out NO leak and a fill and my forge is up and running.

First chance I had I hooked it up to the forge and fired that muther up. She was hissing and spittin' fire in an instant and took a few minutes to heat up. I had some rough cut 1084 blanks that need to be fired cuz they tear up my equipment. It was nice to forge the distal taper and bevels in. That alone will reduce my grinding by 50%. (middle pic) After forging, the blades were normalized 3 times each to reduce stresses in the steel.

Before I cut the gas off to the forge, in went a neck knife for yours truly made from 52100 ball bearing steel. When it reached about 1525 degrees I quickly quenched it in McMaster Carr 11 second quenching oil by dunking it straight in. This process will be done two more times for a total of three quenches, at which time it will go into the oven to temper. (no pic)

I am making this knife as an overall heat treat comparison to the knife blade (top pic, middle blade) I sent to Peters for heat treating.

The knife blade in the bottom pic is a special order, kinda looks like a filet knife huh, for a special guy on his birthday. It was cut out of 8 inch wide band saw blade and is .o75" thick. This will give it lots of flex Can't wait to see how this one turns out.

The very top knife is a chopper that is almost 5/16" thick and weighs like 10 pounds. Not really but it needs a bunch of weight taken off to make it more user friendly. More about this one later.

See Y'all