Amaya Blackstone (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
special_rabbit) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2021-06-04 06:46 am
special_rabbit) wrote in fandomhigh2021-06-04 06:46 am
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Blacksmithing Basics; Friday, Third Period [06/04].
"At this point," Amaya gave the class a little bit of a lopsided and eager grin, "your daggers should start looking more like daggers, and if they don't, well....we might need to go back to the drawing board or perhaps work a little bit more on filing, but I think you've all got it close enough. So today, we're going to be going over some of the more basic finishing techniques, or, at least, finishing when it comes to the blade itself, and those techniques involve heat treatments, especially tempering and quenching.
"First things first: I've had some iron heating up in my own forge for a bit now, so I'd like each of you to grab on of these rods with your tongs and put those in the buckets of oil you've got at your station. That's what we're using to quench the blades, and you'll have a much better time if you quench with warmed oil than cold. If you cool your blade...especially a thin blade like the ones we've been working, too fast, you're more likely to crack it, and that's no good. Anyway..."
So she had them heat their oil, then check their blades, and get started on the first step: normalizing. Reseting and redistributing the steel to a more normalized state and relieving stresses. Heating it and then letting it cool in still air, repeating it about two or three times, and she showed them how to use a magnet to help determine if you're doing it properly, because heating it properly will cause the metal to become nonmagnetic which was just neat, when you got right down to it. You can also take color into consideration, but that's something that'll develop with experience, since there's a fine art to just telling it's ready by looking at it.
Next step: the quench! Amaya explained that quenching is basically what's going to harden your steel, and oil is generally better than water, and they were basically rapidly cooling the steel, changing the makeup of the steel to strengthen it. Heat it up, quench it to cool it, then heat it back up again. Heat and quench, heat and quench. You want to be quick about it; the steel cools pretty quickly even just in the air, and hten get it in the oil with a slight back and forth or slicing movement. Be careful of flare ups, and submerge the blade for about ten to fifteen seconds.
Do a file test on it, to see if the file bites into the steel. If it does, the blade's not hard enough, time to go for another round. If it doesn't bite into the steel, your knife is hard enough, and you've got to finish it up with some tempering that's not dissimilar to baking.
"I usually just pop these guys up on top of the forge for that step," she explained, doing just that and showing off a few other things that were already up there. "And that's probably where we'll leave them until next week, when we'll see how they turned out and finish up on making 'em a little prettier. Any questions before you all get started?"
"First things first: I've had some iron heating up in my own forge for a bit now, so I'd like each of you to grab on of these rods with your tongs and put those in the buckets of oil you've got at your station. That's what we're using to quench the blades, and you'll have a much better time if you quench with warmed oil than cold. If you cool your blade...especially a thin blade like the ones we've been working, too fast, you're more likely to crack it, and that's no good. Anyway..."
So she had them heat their oil, then check their blades, and get started on the first step: normalizing. Reseting and redistributing the steel to a more normalized state and relieving stresses. Heating it and then letting it cool in still air, repeating it about two or three times, and she showed them how to use a magnet to help determine if you're doing it properly, because heating it properly will cause the metal to become nonmagnetic which was just neat, when you got right down to it. You can also take color into consideration, but that's something that'll develop with experience, since there's a fine art to just telling it's ready by looking at it.
Next step: the quench! Amaya explained that quenching is basically what's going to harden your steel, and oil is generally better than water, and they were basically rapidly cooling the steel, changing the makeup of the steel to strengthen it. Heat it up, quench it to cool it, then heat it back up again. Heat and quench, heat and quench. You want to be quick about it; the steel cools pretty quickly even just in the air, and hten get it in the oil with a slight back and forth or slicing movement. Be careful of flare ups, and submerge the blade for about ten to fifteen seconds.
Do a file test on it, to see if the file bites into the steel. If it does, the blade's not hard enough, time to go for another round. If it doesn't bite into the steel, your knife is hard enough, and you've got to finish it up with some tempering that's not dissimilar to baking.
"I usually just pop these guys up on top of the forge for that step," she explained, doing just that and showing off a few other things that were already up there. "And that's probably where we'll leave them until next week, when we'll see how they turned out and finish up on making 'em a little prettier. Any questions before you all get started?"
Sign In - Blacksmithing Basics, 06/04.
Re: Sign In - Blacksmithing Basics, 06/04.
Re: Sign In - Blacksmithing Basics, 06/04.
Listen to the Lecture - Blacksmithing Basics, 06/04.
Welcome to what Amaya does most of her days! She wouldn't have it any other way!
Heat Treat your Daggers! - Blacksmithing Basics, 06/04.
Or maybe that was just Amaya?
Re: Heat Treat your Daggers! - Blacksmithing Basics, 06/04.
Seivarden looked at her shapeless dagger, dripping with oil, with a frown. "Is it supposed to look like this?"
Talk to Amaya - Blacksmithing Basics, 06/04.
OOC - Blacksmithing Basics, 06/04.