electric furnace

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KindOfBlue

Joined
Nov 20, 2003
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Hi, I'm a new member at the bladeforums and just beginning to get knife making started at my own place. Although I have taught to forge from the beginning I am leaning toward making knives in stock removal method do to safety issues and do to the fact I am living in dense suburb area where forging shop can be a trouble.

I have been searching for electric furnace suited for heat treating knives, and so far I have found 3 or 4 manufactures providing variety of heat treating oven for knives. My biggest problem is that I do not know what standard to go by, qualities such as built intergrety, precision, dependency, and so on.

I have had opportunities using paragon furnace and I thought they were great for 18 year old furnace. So with my limited experience I am currently looking for KM-14D furnace by Paragon. My trouble is that according to their catalog, the furnace reaches up to 2,ooo degree F. I was advised that I would be needing a furnace that will reach 2,300 degree F since some stainless steel requires above 2,000 degree F for hardening process.

My question to you fellow members are that 1. how or what standard to go by to pick furnace? and 2. is the furnace I'm currently looking at will do work? I have $1,500 to spent (shipment included)and I'd appriciate for any opinions and suggestions from anyone with experience with electric furnaces.
 
Hi, I'm a new member at the bladeforums and just beginning to get knife making started at my own place. Although I have taught to forge from the beginning I am leaning toward making knives in stock removal method do to safety issues and do to the fact I am living in dense suburb area where forging shop can be a trouble.

I have been searching for electric furnace suited for heat treating knives, and so far I have found 3 or 4 manufactures providing variety of heat treating oven for knives. My biggest problem is that I do not know what standard to go by, qualities such as built intergrety, precision, dependency, and so on.

I have had opportunities using paragon furnace and I thought they were great for 18 year old furnace. So with my limited experience I am currently looking for KM-14D furnace by Paragon. My trouble is that according to their catalog, the furnace reaches up to 2,ooo degree F. I was advised that I would be needing a furnace that will reach 2,300 degree F since some stainless steel requires above 2,000 degree F for hardening process.

My question to you fellow members are that 1. how or what standard to go by to pick furnace? and 2. is the furnace I'm currently looking at will do work? I have $1,500 to spent (shipment included)and I'd appriciate for any opinions and suggestions from anyone with experience with electric furnaces.

here is a completed thread, ignore the first one I have forgot to paste last paragraph
 
Kinda,

I you wanna go cheap....

I spent $50 on mine, plus $175 in shipping. But that's just me. Butt ugly beast, but hot is hot. I see furnaces on ebay for not a bad price. Look for glass kilns, furnaces, anything. Mine was listed as a 'Lab Furnace'. Unless you go for the vacuum furnace all you need is hot and a really good temp controller.

That aside, most of the 'normal' custom knife steels are heated below 2000, S30V, ATS34, D2, 440c, ... I run mine at 1975. Maybe some one can chime in on what steels require more than 2000. (Running over 2000 is really gonna go thru the thermocouplers!)

For information on new stuff, I'm sure someone else here will help.

Steve

I searched on ebay, found you a nice vacuum furnace;)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2575361798&category=633
 
The Paragons are great ovens. I have the KM14D and the KM9D, both with upgraded controllers. The oven can handle those high temps but the older controllers can't. They can program the newer Sentry controllers up to 2400°.
 
Sando that's the type of vacuum furnace I've been talking about .But as I said you blademakers are too cheap to buy it.They really do a great job though.....An oven made for 2000F may not run accurately at 1975F, you should have a little extra for fewer problems.
 
First of all I want to Thanks Mr. Sando, Mr, Carson, and Mr Mete for such fast responses. I'm really greateful for suggestions and advices from all three of you, now I have more aspects to find a furnace I need and step closer to have knives made at my own place.

I'm going to call Paragon with questions prepared on first thing Monday. I would like to find out more about upgraded Sentry controllers.

Again, thank you very much for taking your time and making valuable suggestions, I'm really greateful.
 
My approach to stock removal in suburbia is to build a forge, and do the heat treating that way. You don't have to be a blacksmith to heat treat with a forge. For what I want, and with occasional profesional HT service use, That will do it for me.

If I was selling this stuff, I would probably enjoy the challenge of talking up carbon steels I can HT myself.

Some SS can be done in a forge.

If I had a kiln, I would probably build it since the controllers can be had for under 100 bucks on EBAY, and the rest of it is a space heater traped in the heat resistant shell I already know how to build thanks to my forge. If I had a kiln/furnace, i still don't think I would be able to ensure prefesional HT of SS, which I would probably send out anyway. Can one easily do home cryo?
 
I would think about an EvenHeat oven. I used to go along with the idea that Paragon was king, and that EvenHeat was crap.

But after talking to many of my friends with various ovens, the general consensus is that the EvenHeat is actually preferred...not just for its performance, but ALSO the fact it's much less money.

I run a digitally controlled motlen salt bath in my shop for heat-treating, and it works WONDERFULLY. But if you have issues with running a forge, you won't want to go my route.

You can run salts in an electric kiln/furnace, but unless you have an extremely high quality unit, it will take forever to heat the salt charge. And the elements will be totally shot if you ever experience a leak. There are some industrial quality electric salt-baths out there, but the few I've seen were ridiculously expensive.

Many of my friends own the KM14D, and/or the KM24D, and most of them would buy the EvenHeat if they did it over again. Two of my next big purchases will be a heat-treat furnace, and a Rockwell tester.

Then an air hammer...but that's another thread ;)
Nick

good luck, and let us know what you end up doing...

Oh, and here's some info on the Evenheat ovens from Koval knives catalog

KF-18STP
2300 max temp
10" wide X 6.5" high X 18" deep
13 amps, 3120 watts, 240 volt
Set-Pro control with infinite switch and guage
$890.00

KF-22.5STP
2300 max temp
10" wide X 6.5" high X 22.5" deep
15 amps, 3600 watts, 240 volt
Set-Pro control with infinite switch and guage
$935.00
 
Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Protactical thank you very much for your suggestions. It is nice to hear broad opinions on the subject and I will order a catalog from other manufactures to see differences.
As far as building my forge or oven, that is out of question for me now.
By the way, I was thiking what makes difference between furnace size? I see Paragon's KM series are large enough to for knives and yet I see much larger oven volume on EvenHeat's oven. I'm assuming bigger is not always better in this case since larger volume requires more control and more energy to heat?
Again, thank you all for your suggestions and input, I will let you all know anything else happens.
 
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