By EasyHow

How to harden stainless steel

After the procedure of hardening stainless steel acquires hardness, losing its flexible properties. Hardened steel blade knife is made using water, oil, air, wet sand, wax, etc.

You will need

- steel blade;
- electric furnace;
- sealing wax;
- turpentine.

Instruction

Steel blade without a handle of plastic, wood or another material (only if knife with molded handle is also stainless steel) place in cold electric oven.

Turning on the furnace, gradually heat the blade up to 950-1050 degrees until it becomes a glowing bright red color, and wait some time (5-10 minutes). It is possible to produce heating of the steel and on hot coals and on a gas burner, and with the help of a blowtorch, but to control the precise temperature control is most convenient in an electric furnace.

Carefully, observing safety precautions, remove the blade from the oven, attaching it securely with pliers or other gripping tool and quickly plug it into the wax for a second.

Then remove it and insert again in the same wax, but in a new, not previously untouched by the blade and instantly remove.

Immerse and remove the red-hot steel blade until then, until you feel that the metal included in the weight of the wax in the oil, cooled down.

Clean the steel blade from the remnants of wax, until it froze, and wipe it with turpentine. The hardened blades of stainless steel this is completed.

Note

Keep in mind that the longer and harder you heat the metal, the deeper quenching, the harder is the blade. But too rigid blade becomes less stable, increasingly losing the degree of elasticity and their cutting properties. Here everyone chooses what he needs more.

Useful advice

The hot blade is much easier to bend or damage the other way. Therefore, plunging it into the wax, especially the first time, do it smooth, precisely designed with smooth gentle strokes. But choosing a steel, it is better to give preference to foreign manufacturers, as they have requirements for the percentage of content of stainless steel is actually composed of stainless steel above.