W2

I have some 3/16 x 2 W2 coming from Canadian knife maker. I know I can contact them for heat treat help, but I was wondering if any here has a successful recipe

 

The quench medium will vary whether you are going for a hamon or not.

@Fred/A used to show us his amazing knives in W2 with lot of stellar hamon. Perhaps he can chime in.

Dan

 

@dancom thanks!

I bought the W2 from Knifemaker.ca because I noticed Aldo Bruno was out currently, so I wanted to snag some! Totally understood about the quench medium, that’s why I am not going to proceed with making knives from this stock until I have brought in the Houghton Quench K (7-9 sec oil) that RP Oil in Whitby, Ontario is getting a quote for me from Commonwealth Oil in Harrow, Ontario.

I have also been reading forum posts from Don Hanson a knife maker who at some point also sold W2. He posted that he soaks the blades @ 1425 - 1450 for 5minutes and then quenches in room temperature oil, where as I watched a video recently where Walter Sorrels did a 1-1000 2-1000 dunk in water first and then into oil (only an assumption but since Water is in the U.S I would bet that oil was Parks #50). What has me scratching my head is Don’s soak time of only 5 minutes at temperature! But this seems to be backed up by a follow up post by Howard Clark.

So all that said, as I am a member of this forum and not the American ones I am reading, I posted my question here because I value the input of the members here as much for their experience. To clarify, I am not forging it, I will be stock removing, and so was just looking for heat-treat / quench tips

 

Don make some absolutely insanely beautiful knives.

As for the soak duration, I believe there is a rule for W2 which is 30 minutes per inch thickness, so 5 minutes sounds about right for 3/16". (30 x 0.1875 = 5.6 minutes)

 

Perfect! Now I am excited to play around with it, I ordered a 4ft bar, so plenty to test!

Thanks @dancom !

 

@ToddR

Maybe Commonwealth Oil will let you walk down and pick up some quench oil then