I purchased everything new and went with a programmable PID controller. Mine cost just a bit over $300. Little over $100 for the bricks, $25 for the prewound Kanthal wire, around $125 for the PID and Thermocouple and the rest on sheet metal for the shell.
Seth
Scherar,
Thanks for posting your results. A question if I may, what kind of agitation did you use with the blades in the quench oil?
Another question because I am looking for one, what kind of hardness tester did you get and from where?
Seth
I purchased my PID controller and TC from Auberins as did other s here. I got a controller that can be programmed as to help with stainless and for annealing allow steels. The Kanthal wire I purchased pre rolled for around $25 delivered off of Ebay. You can email the guy with your oven size and...
My main forge will only get up to around 1950 degrees f. Is this hot enough or am I causing extra heats when I am doing the basic shaping of my blades?
Seth
I do not remember who right now, maybe Kevin will, but I do remember some outfit sells oils under their own name that are actually Houghton products. McMaster Carr also sells quenching oils and ships anywhere.
Seth
To reduce grain size in this case I would do the following, lowering the temp of each soak if possible :
Normalize
Quench
Normalize
Normalize
Quench
Temper to desired hardness
Seth
It does not answer your question but I am very interested in what type of jig you have that can be put in an oven for the "Clamping it past straight" part.
Seth
I like the your hi - low gas setup. Looking forward to hearing how well it works.
I have been doing a bit of the same kind of stuff with a toaster oven for tempering and a D. Fogg style drum forge for heat treating. Stacy Apelt's post were EXTREMELY helpful.
Now to build that electric HT oven...
As Dwane mentioned be very wary of the temperature. I connected a PID controller and thermocoulpe to mine. Before that when I set the dials on the toaster to 450 it was actually only 370 inside.
Seth