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Me too :)

Forty-eight, one-inch long pieces :biggrin:

Just got back into town from a little camping trip up north with Angie and Lydia. Didn't catch one darn fish but I did improve my suntan and kept a pretty good beer buzz going most of the weekend :biggrin: Along the way we passed through the town where I was born... oddly, they still haven't...

That's cool as the other side of the pillow.

I agree fellas, an Rc number by itself only tells us one part of the story, and could actually be very misleading. Different alloys, and different blade geometries will perform to their best potential at different hardnesses... maybe one shop's Rockwell is calibrated for a certain range and not...

Just wanted to say I wholeheartedly agree with JDW and Rob45, being picky about getting the coarse scratches out is the right way. Even on a super-basic 400 grit finish, it will look much better if you go at least to 600 and then come back down to 400. I'm refering to hand-sanding; I've never...

What Josh said. I've made several file-knives that way (by simply tempering back and stock-removing) and it works very well, with very little chance of messing up the existing HT. Of course if you want to forge a big'un, the sub-critical anneal makes a lot of sense.

Dale, the only other thing I can add for your technique (which is basically the same as mine), is try sanding wet with Mobil 1 for "lube" after you get your 400 nice and clean. I found things go faster and less fishhooks that way, than with water, windex or WD-40. 400 is where the rubber meets...

Slim to none. I'm with Justin and JS on this one, there would be no need in putting carbide teeth on them if they were L6 or a similar high-grade steel suitable for knives.

That seems reasonable. Kydex WILL scratch the dickens out of a blade, whether it's the kydex itself or any bit of grit or dirt that somehow gets in there... on the other hand it's basically maintenance-free, you can just rinse it out if you need to... just something to consider.

I understand. I've never used a Rockwell tester myself, but I'm told it's wise to spend the money on really accurate calibration blocks. Perhaps that would help to narrow it down to a point or less? Kevin Cashen has written on this subject here and over on BladeForums, maybe try searching his...

It depends who you ask, and how you define "mirror". A lot of guys go to 800, buff and call it good. If you prefer to actually get all the scratches out, rather than just make them shiny, do as much hand-sanding as you can before HT, at least to a clean 600. If you're using a vacuum furnace or...

Plus or minus 1.5 Rc points seems pretty big. There's a huge difference between 57 and 60.

Gorgeous work, Erin. I'm in that PIF too and mine isn't nearly so pretty... is it too late to bow out from shame? :D

Watch your topknot, Murph. We appreciate your service.

Nice!!

I've watched a lot of guys struggle with under-powered, cheapo blasting kits, or spend way too much sending knives out for coating... well, I found a better way. There is a small custom shop near me that specializes in motorcycle/snowmobile/hot rod parts and so forth. They have been more than...

Same here. :thumbup:

I will say this... I worked at the local PO one summer and you would be amazed and disgusted at how packages got thrown around. Most of the folks on the docks were temp workers and simply didn't give a hoot. Marking it "Fragile" sometimes just amuses them and makes them toss it harder to see...

The good news is, it seems like you're getting the steel good and hard in the quench. I think that's a good starting point. According to my notes and the charts I've found, 500F should give you about 59-60Rc... which in my experience shouldn't be that brittle. Sounds like it might be the oven...