Phil Wilson didn't start this thread.
No, someone who has received advisement from Phil Wilson, along with other knifemakers, started this thread. As well, you did not start posting in this thread with any concern for
who was providing the service.
I don't understand this thread. There is nothing an individual can do to the heat treatment of a purchasezd blade except ruin it. This seems like a bizarre idea to me -- an unworkable solution desperately searching for a nonexistent problem to solve.
Nothing an individual can do except ruin it? I send a knife to Paul Bos, and he's going to ruin it? He's an individual.
Nobody is questioning the basic physics involved in heat-treating metal. Why is it so threatening and outrageous to consider the possiblity that the "service" being offered in this thread is nonetheless ill-advised?
Because this service, as provided by others, has been used several times prior.
So any questioning of the basic concept is "sarcastic trolling?" There can be no legitimate questioning of the advisability of mucking about with the heat treatment of a perfectly functional knife?
I'll say it again -- this seems like a very bad idea to me, and anyone who avails themselves of this free service is going to get exactly what they paid for.
Free knives are given away in a variety of fashions on this site constantly. I received one recently, and also offered one. Knifemakers have an annual event, people leave them behind when geocaching, they often post about carrying an extra to hand out to try to get others interested in knives. Since these knives are free, are they a bad idea? Should people not accept them for fear of faulty heat treat, missing screws, poison on the cutting edge?
By giving a knife away, a private individual does himself no tangible favors, just a sense of goodwill. With this offer, cotdt gets a chance to feel good, experiment, and if all goes well, set himself up to provide the service for a fee. He's taking a page from the drug dealers' manual
The basic flaw in your assumptions is that it is "trolling" to question the need or the advisability of this "free service." Nobody is claiming that the heat treatments offered by manufacturers are perfect. I simply can't see something like this provided for free by a private individual doing anything but ruining what was a perfectly good knife.
People are free to do any dumb thing they want with their knives, up to and including strapping on hockey masks and videotaping themselves stabbing cinder blocks and hammering the things to pieces -- but just because nobody's stopping you from doing it doesn't mean somebody shouldn't stick up their hand and say, "Hey, that... doesn't seem like a very good idea."
I don't care if the original poster is a traveling ninja rocket scientist with a degree in engineering from Miskatonic University -- this is still a really bad idea.
You have yet to provide a reason why this is a bad idea. Just that you think it is... because it is free. What exactly is required to heat treat a knife blade? Can you point out what cotdt is necessarily missing to make this offered service sub-par? You are completely sure that this will ruin any knife, that much is clear. Why you are, is not. Of course, the basic notion of a new set of thermal cycles on the blade has been shown to be viable in this thread. It was shown several times, years ago.
And I disagree with destroying perfectly functional knives because some random individual claims to be able to achieve speculative, marginal gains in performance by monkeying about with their heat treatment. But then, I don't claim to be a metallurgical genius who can sense that which no other knife owner or manufacturer can sense, nor have I conducted extensive tests in my home laboratory. I can't even claim to be an expert in metallurgy because I have work experience or a degree in an entirely different field. It's a crazy world, what with all the disagreement.
Destroying? You do realize that many of the registered knifemakers posting here started as random individuals. Also, some people posting here appear to be random individuals, and then we find out they are established makers. There is no pedigree required to heat treat a knife. Some use a blowtorch and a bucket of used motor oil. Some use cooking oil, or a concoction made up of various chemicals. Some use industry specific oils, as from Parks or Houghton. Some use PID controllers, forges lined with ceramic fiber insulation, sealed with refractory coating, perhaps even a layer of ITC 2000 for additional heat reflection. Hell, I have that (at least some components remain after the hurricane), and I haven't sold a knife or offered to heat treat anyone's blades. I, being a random individual, have over a gig of pdfs, saved web pages, and other digital documents on heat treating and forging. I have the Heat Treater's Guide published by ASM, the Atlas of Isothermal Transformation & Cooling Transformation Diagrams, class notes/lecture material for steel metallurgy, Functions of the Alloying Elements in Steel by Bain, and Metallurgy of Steel for Bladesmiths and Others who Heat Treat and Forge Steel by Verhoeven. You can find most of the information needed to heat treat simple steels in a home built shop right here on Bladeforums. More complex steels can require higher temps and longer hold times, but do not require a graduate degree.
You're right because... you say so? That does not strike you as just the tiniest bit solipsistic?
Far be it from me to criticize the one percent of the one percent of self-proclaimed super-users out there, but this sounds to me like an unrealistic level of perceived performance gains -- like building a rifle so accurate that no human being can wield it steadily enough to get that marginal performance increase from it.
Let's stipulate that such gains are theoretically possible. Sending a bunch of knives off to somebody to be "rehardened" for free still sounds like ruining those knives for no good reason, to me.
There is no theory at this point. The gains are noticed in a task as mundane as cutting manila rope. It is like questioning the difference between 420HC and S90V. Why does one cut longer than the other? Why would a 1095 blade at 59 Rc cut longer than one at 55? These are not difficult questions, and they are not barely perceptible differences.
Why are those clinging so desperately to this idea so quick to resort to childish insults and hostility? And why is it, when these things are pointed out, that the only responses that can be offered in its defense are appeals to completely different authorities or mindless, unfounded shrieks of "troll, troll, troll" ...?
I don't see honest inquiry or a genuine interest in improving performance here -- I see an ardent need to be seen as engaged in such an activity, which isn't the same thing at all.
And what is the difference between actually testing for performance gains, and only being perceived as doing such? That people aren't being asked to pay?
