>>75209Yeah drill holes first...
Also, leave 1mm or so at the cutting edge, so you don't overheat it and decarburise it. Put the edge on after, when it's hard. If you use a belt sander for this then be careful not to overheat it and ruin the temper. Dunk in water regularly.
Hold it in the forge edge up for the same (not overheating the edge) reason. Then flip it when it's ready to get the edge up to temp.
Preheating the quench oil is a good idea, it stops the cold oil vapourising when hot knife placed in it, which means oil and knife come into contact quicker for a better quench (short version). You can do this by heating up a large chunk of metal in your forge while waiting for it to get going good, then drop it in the oil and stir it about.
Quench it edge first, and never rock it side to side, only front to back.
Uneven cooling is what makes it warp, so don't drop it in there to sit on the bottom of the tank (or do the side to side thing). Sometimes it'll warp anyways, just gotta take that risk.
Try at it with a file after the quench, it should be obvious it's much harder than before.
Dont' drop it at this stage or it might snap like a chomp bar in winter.
Clean it up a bit and chuck it in the oven.
Oven thermostats lie, so get an oven thermometer or similar.
450 is probably more like it. with O1 that'll be 58-59hrc. To be honest a little high or a little low aint all that much of a problem.
I also don't believe that (with carbon steel anyways) you have to let it cool slowly from tempering temperatures. Just plonk it in water.
If you want to, you can draw down the temper on the spine by heating it with a torch till you see the oxidisation colours running, but be careful not to heat the edge. Stickign it in a potato is what I do to keep the edge cool.
Then put a proper sharp edge on it, and shit will be good to go.
all this is the brief version, sorry bout that. knife forums usually have some good stickys abotu this stuff. I use britishblades a lot
