Heat Treating Damascus

[Randy Lucius]

So far all the knives I've made have been with Aldo's 1084. Heated to non-magnetic in an Atlas Mini forge and quenched in Canola oil. I'd like to make one from Damascus soon. It's 1095 and 15N20. Can I use the same procedure or does 1095 require a soak time? What about tempering? I use two one hour cycles of 400 on the 1084.

 

[Doug Lester]

The 1095 is a shallow hardening steel which may or may not harden sufficiently in warm Canola oil. As far as soaking it goes, it can be but needs good temperature control to keep from forming large amounts of retained austenite, like most hypereuticoid steels. Then you are going to have some carbon loss from the 1095 due to carbon migration and carbon loss from the whole mass of steel due to decarberization from the high welding temperature. Then there's how thin you make the layers which will promote carbon migration. All that determines the final carbon content of the blade.

As far as tempering goes you will have to experiment a bit. I would start at 350° and test the edge then work it up by 25° increments to get it to the spot that I want.

A question, if you have experience with 1084 why don't you use that with the 15N20. The 1084 is a tad more forgiving than 1095.

Doug

 

[Randy Lucius]

I'm not making the Damascus myself. Was looking at purchasing a billet that was 1095/15N20. I'll look around and see if I can find some 1084/15N20 or I could just buy a heat treating oven.. Thanks for the reply Doug. Very helpful!!