Rant: I forged a small knife from a piece of old leaf spring and the quench left it with a weird, wavy pattern along the edge.

I was working with a piece of 5160 from a truck spring, got it to a bright orange heat, and quenched it in warm canola oil, but now the edge looks like a tiny topographic map, so has anyone else had a pattern like this show up from what seemed like a normal quench?

2 comments

2 Comments

hayden_rodriguez6d ago

Gotta disagree, that sounds like classic warping from uneven heating. Bright orange is way too hot for 5160, you probably overheated it. The wavy edge is the steel moving like crazy in the quench because it got too soft. Next time aim for a dull cherry red, not orange, and make sure you're heating the whole blade evenly. Warm oil is good, but the heat was the problem.

stella6276d ago

Oof, yeah, that tracks... my first attempt at heat treating looked like a potato chip. Got the color wrong just like that and ended up with a blade that could probably steer a sled. @hayden_rodriguez is right about the dull red. I was so scared of underheating that I turned my garage into a mini-sunset, and the steel just gave up. Learned the hard way that even heating is everything, or you're just making modern art.