Old blacksmith told me to quench in warm oil, I used cold and ruined 5 blades

Guy named Tom from a shop in Phoenix gave me advice 6 months ago. He said always preheat your quenching oil to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. I thought he was being fussy so I skipped it. Cracked 3 blades and got soft edges on 2 more before I learned my lesson. Cost me about 40 hours of work total. Anyone else learned the hard way that small details matter way more than you think?

3 comments

3 Comments

price.gavin12d ago

Oh man, I feel your pain. That's a brutal lesson to learn. The whole oil temperature thing is one of those details that sounds like blacksmithing witchcraft until you mess it up yourself. Cold oil just doesn't move heat fast enough and you get thermal shock on the blade, plus it can boil and form gas pockets that mess up the quench line. I keep my oil right at 120-130 now by checking it with a cheap cooking thermometer every time I quench. Saves so much headache. You really do have to treat every step like it matters, even the boring stuff like oil temp.

wesley18112d agoMost Upvoted

Can't believe you just said that about the gas pockets. That explains so much about the problems I had early on. I never even considered the oil could boil and mess with the quench line like that. Always thought it was just about heat transfer speed, never really understood the science behind it. Makes me wonder how many other little details I've been skipping without knowing the real reason why they matter.

olivia39812d ago

Heard a metallurgist say once that oil temp changes the martensite formation rate too.