# Is water quenching much more risky then oil?



## mikaelsan (Mar 10, 2019)

Hello kkf I'm doing a few knives to keep me occupied these days, the two of them is iron clad white Hitachi, I wondered if water quenching would be a good idea for them, as the specification started that the window for a good quench is much more forgiving with water. I'm attaching an image of the chart and of it fails I'll do it after.
The knives are two fairly simple knives, a 200mm Western profile carver, and a small pairing less then 100mm so I'm hoping they would be less risk free then more "advanced/bigger" knives. 
My experience is two oil quenches in o2 i am quite happy with how the edges hold up in use, no issues with warping out cracking. 
I'm heating in a brick forge, I control the temperature of the oil with an infrared temperature gun, and heat the oil with the heater from my deep fryer, then pull it out when I'm around 70 c. I have nothing but a magnet, and my eyes to judge the temperature on the steel.

Would you still strongly discourage using water or what do you think?


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## RDalman (Mar 10, 2019)

Yes, in this instance you're more likely to get a good hardening with waterquench. Waterquench is always a little risky, but on ironclad it's definately doable. I think bryan showed a video the other day of how he does it. You dunk it fast into a generously sized water container, hold it still for 4-5 secs and pull out. right into tempering. maybe check with a file in between.


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## RDalman (Mar 10, 2019)

nonmagnetic is 760, so just slightly over that


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## mikaelsan (Mar 10, 2019)

tack så mycket, also for the temperature, keep forgetting what the temperature is. I will go for it then


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## RDalman (Mar 10, 2019)

mikaelsan said:


> tack så mycket, also for the temperature, keep forgetting what the temperature is. I will go for it then


Also, heat your water to lukewarm. And some salt and a dash of soap makes it quench more even also.


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## HSC /// Knives (Apr 3, 2019)

I water quench all laminated steel, I've never had a problem or cracked a blade.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTiVTXElav-/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1vbi9w3ftma72


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## mikaelsan (Apr 3, 2019)

i followed most of Robins advice and i am happy i did water quench it in retrospect. Because i was having a really hard time getting that blade heated up properly for some reason, which is weird because i just quenched 3 other blades just before, no sweat. Don't know how well the ht went yet, but it definitely did harden, some bending issues but i am just about through grinding the blade now finally. But quenching in water definitely was an equally satisfying experience as quenching in oil was, i am thinking i might go that route again if/when i decide to make more knives


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## inferno (Apr 5, 2019)

Some steels are water quenching and some are oil quenching, and some are air (like hss/ss/many classic tool steels). This is because they have a difference in "hardenability", basically how deep from the surface the steel fully hardens to. 

Sure there is some leeway here and it depends on thickness of the piece and so on, and complexity of the shape. If you quench oil or air steels in water or brine its a very high risk of them cracking. Unless you do some interrupted quench but thats not scientific anymore 

Basically the steels prefer one method. just look at the response for the oil quench of the steel you posted. Thats why!

With that being said i have heard people doing some types off SS in oil. So I guess sometimes that works too.

With water quenching steel you can experiment with brine (salt water), even though its even more aggressive than straight water, with some steels it cracks less. its likely because air/vacuum/whatever bubbles dont form as easily on the surface of the steel in brine and therefore you dont get any temp/stress gradients in the steel.


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## inferno (Apr 5, 2019)

Also most steels were developed a long long time ago as some type of tool steels or similar and their classification was based on fairly thick pieces, like 50-1000mm thick.


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## Dan P. (Apr 27, 2019)

I quenched in brine for a while, but it makes everything around it rusty!
I find it better to clay the blade as protection against the dreaded "gas jacket".


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