My first attempts at hand made knives

[jayd]

Here's some of my first custom knives. I started out repairing broken autos like Hubertus, then I made a Damascus blade for a small Hubertus. I rebuilt a cheap Italian auto replacing the blade, liners, bolsters and scales. My first complete knife is the liner lock with Damascus blade and bolsters, scales are MOP. The last knife is a large auto, it's coil fired and a little slow. Check out the burnt toast, that's what happens when you don't pay attention when tempering.

[RoadFish]

Those are pretty nice for "first" attempts! What heat source were you using to "temper", or were you heating for the initial heat treat?

[jayd]

I used charcoal, a chimney starter and a Weedeater blower. I'd tempered a few small blades with no problems, then while doing this large blade I got careless. It was going fine, just reaching the orange temp range when the center turned to a plasma (white-yellow color), oh sh*t.

[RoadFish]

Might have been nickel that melted, but if it was, the steel would have been also very close to melting. Not that much difference in there melting temperatures. Tempering usually refers to the lower temperature step after hardening to provide a non-brittle product.

[jayd]

Yes it did happen during hardening, just usually refer to "Heat Treating" as tempering. Most people I've spoken with don't know the difference, saved me having to explain.