That Tuesday where every single heat treat cracked on me

I had a day last week that about made me want to throw my hammer through the wall. I was working on a batch of five chef knives, all 1084 steel, normalized them twice and everything like I always do. First blade came out of the quench with a hairline crack right down the spine, second one had a chip at the tip before I even tempered it. By the third one I checked my thermometer and it was reading 50 degrees low, so my soak temps were all off without me realizing it. Swapped the thermocouple out but the damage was done, two more cracked in the tempering cycle because I rushed the normalization on the last pair. Ended up scrapping all five blades after 12 hours of work down the drain. Anyone else have a run of bad luck like that where everything just decides to fail at once?

2 comments

2 Comments

green.jessica8d agoMost Upvoted

Nah, that sounds like a rough day but a bad batch doesn't mean the sky is falling. You'll get em next time.

angela1918d ago

4 storms in two weeks hit my batch setup hard last season, so I feel your pain there. Sometimes it's just bad luck with weather or timing, not a sign of bigger problems, @green.jessica. Keep your head down and run the next one like it's a fresh start, that's all you can do.