One More Try -- Second Session of HT O-1 Steel W/PICS!!

[Tom LaRussa]

Things didn't go quite as well for me this time as they did last time. Maybe I had beginner's luck the first time or something.

In any case, here are some pics of what I was up to yesterday:


First off, remember that safety is very important. Always wear ANSI approved safety glasses. All the time. Even when you're asleep. 'Cuz you just never know...




I made this little magnet thingie to test when the steel is done. I hope you can see from the sequence of pictures that the magnet is only loosely attached to the wood via the bolt. Therefore, when a piece of magnetic metal touches it the magnet can move toward the metal. If it does not try to follow the metal then the metal must not be magnetic, hence it must be cooked enough.








Here is my high tec quenching setup. A small coffee can full of oil placed inside a plastic bucket which catches drips.




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I couldn't get the heat right yesterday. At least that's what I thought...


I started out with just the little door to the barbeque open, thinking that this would allow the most heat to build up inside.







This didn't work, so I opened the big door at the end of the smoke box.







But I still couldn't get enough heat, so I opened the lid of the smokebox as well.






Even with both the end and the lid wide open it seemed that I could not build up enough heat!




So, I brought out a fan and set it to blow into the door of the smoke box. This produced PLENTY of heat.




In retrospect, it seems that there never really was a problem with producing enough heat. What was really going on is that I didn't understand where the hottest part of the fire was.

I assumed that the fire would be hottest someplace deep inside the pile of burning coals, so I had the metal pieces shoved deep into the fire.

Turns out that I was completely wrong. The hottest part of the fire is right near the surface. So all I accomplished by shoving the metal so far into the pile is to overheat the middle sections of the steel.


Here is the little Krenovian carving knife right out of the oil. Pretty eh? (NOT!)




Here is what it looks like from the side. Apparently I made the handle end of the blade a tad too thin, because it warped pretty badly when it hit the oil.






Here is what happens when you overheat the middle of a long piece of steel, as I described above. Bent the suckers in various directions.



Oh well, a lesson learned and a mistake that won't be repeated.

Besides, I'll be able to salvage most of my work by cutting the chisels a bit shorter than originally planned.

There's always next time. Speaking of which, here are the files at the beginning of the annealing process. I put them in yesterday at about 4 pm and now, at 11 am, they are still too warm to handle without the leather gloves.

[Gene Collison]

Tom,

I think the hottest part of the fire is really not in the coals but at the very edge of the flame on top of the coals. I am sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, you may want to try it in your next session. Also, I have an aluminum pencil shaped tool with a magnet on one end meant for test purposes, it would be a lot handier than your horseshoe magnet if you can find one. Keep up the great posts...

Gene

[Jerry Palmer]

With carbon steel it is my understanding that you do want to bury the steel in the coals as on the top as pictured, there is sufficient oxygen to actually burn the carbon out of the steel.

When annealing some old rasps I got from my neighbor the farrier, I used the smoker fire-box with white oak wood, well dried and seasoned, while I was smoking some brisket. They seemed to get to the glowing red hot stated shortly after I took the brisket out and opened the air inlet door and the chimney in the smoker box. Fed a couple extra pieces of wood in for good measure, and let it burn down on its own.

[Tom LaRussa]

With carbon steel it is my understanding that you do want to bury the steel in the coals as on the top as pictured, there is sufficient oxygen to actually burn the carbon out of the steel.

Oops. Good point.

I know that the files buried themselves as the fire burned down, so I'll just have to hope that happened before the metal got damaged.

When annealing some old rasps I got from my neighbor the farrier, I used the smoker fire-box with white oak wood, well dried and seasoned, while I was smoking some brisket.

Mmmm... Dry rub or wet?

They seemed to get to the glowing red hot stated shortly after I took the brisket out and opened the air inlet door and the chimney in the smoker box. Fed a couple extra pieces of wood in for good measure, and let it burn down on its own.

That's basically what I did, only with charcoal and, as mentioned above, I forgot to pile stuff on top of them. I don't have any firewood, and I'm not sure where I can get it around here. None of the houses down here even have fireplaces.