Heat Treating Services for Small Volume

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me2

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Oct 11, 2003
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I haven't been as active here for several years as I was in the period around 2015. At that time there were very few heat-treating services offering hardening of oil quenching steels. Are there any that can heat treat something like 8670, 15N20, 52100, etc? I also have a single piece of A2 I will eventually turn into a knife. My current goal is just to make some kitchen knives for myself and family.
 
me2 said:
I haven't been as active here for several years as I was in the period around 2015. At that time there were very few heat-treating services offering hardening of oil quenching steels. Are there any that can heat treat something like 8670, 15N20, 52100, etc? I also have a single piece of A2 I will eventually turn into a knife. My current goal is just to make some kitchen knives for myself and family.
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If you lived near me I would do them for you. Its difficult, for small quantity. That's why I bought my oven. I had help from a knifemaker in UK to HT a few donkeys years ago. Is there not a club or something near you where you could reach out, I am sure that plenty folks would be delighted to help you along.
 
It’s not a huge issue if I have to change to air hardening steel for heat treatment purposes. I haven’t ordered steel yet. There was a local shop I used years ago but those were A2 and S7. I didn’t ask if they did oil quenching steels.
 
Peter’s Heat Treat does small quantities. Obviously much cheaper per knife if done in larger quantities. If you look at their site, scroll down to blade services and you will find good info.

Good luck with your builds.
 
Last I heard he became selective to manage the workload?
 
I talked to the shop and they can do oil hardened steels. I’m leaning toward O1 or 52100 but need to look into 52100 a little more as far as heat treating stock removal knives. 15N20 is also appealing. I want to make something similar to a Cold Steel Master Hunter in terms of blade shape. Any other ideas? If it will work for that it will work for kitchen knives.
 
You might want to ask them two questions:
1) What quenchant are they using? (Brand Name, Speed)
2) Do they have a Rockwell tester to check the hardness before and after tempering.
 
They do have a tester. I don’t know what oil. I was considering switching to O1 to be safe.
 
Way-Barney said:
If you lived near me I would do them for you. Its difficult, for small quantity. That's why I bought my oven. I had help from a knifemaker in UK to HT a few donkeys years ago. Is there not a club or something near you where you could reach out, I am sure that plenty folks would be delighted to help you along.
Click to expand...
If I could do the heat treatments myself, I’d probably use 15n20. Since I’m planning to send it out, I’m willing to be a little flexible.
 
Without knowing what oil they use, O1 will fully harden in basically anything, even canola oil in thicker blades. I want to make a copy of the old Carbon V Cold Steel Scalper, but bumped up just a bit in thickness to 5/32” or 3/16”.
 
If using 80CRV2, plan to do something with the decarb! I did a normalizing, DET and then heat treated several blades and lost a good bit of thickness! They were around .135" starting (1/8" barstock that has mill scale on it) and are around .10" after removing the decarb and getting into good, hard steel. If you just do the Austentizing and not the normalizing/DET, the decarb isn't bad. Something to think about! I now have ATP and got some 321 foil so I can foil them for the Normalizing and DET, and then use the ATP when quenching.
 
I use Peter's and have never had a warped or failed blade return to me. I grind the high wear resistant steels to .010-.015 pre HT and have not had any issues with bacon edge from them.
 
I have been heat treating for a few knife friends and just steered one friend to Peter's as after around 10 or 11 high alloy blanks Peter's is a better deal.
 
real test is in this next batch. Sent in a laminate 10V, hollow ground with a thin edge (.015). We'll see if it warps. Hope not, that steel is expensive! And I'm almost out.
 
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