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My homemade 8/8 smiley

I remember doing an experiment in college, but I don't remember the kind of heat treated steel that was used (high carbon [1095] or low carbon), but it was 1/4 inch solid square rod. We heated treated the steel with a torch in three places in three different ways.
1. The first spot we heated to some color (I want to say red) and let air cool.
2. The second spot we heated to the same color and immediately quenched in water.
3. The third spot we heated to the same color, immediately quenched in water, then re-heated to blue and let it air cool.
We then tried to determine the characteristics of the three spots. Spot 1 was soft, and bent easily, but was very tough. Spot two was HARD, and brittle, snapping quite easily. The third spot that was "double tempered" was still quite hard, and was very tough, and was MUCH stiffer than the surrounding metal (we bent the rod on both sides of the "double tempering").

I told you all of this so I could say that the quarter inch stock we used was heat treated to the center, which should mean that the quarter inch stock you are using should be heat treated to the center. Just make sure when quenching, you allow enough time to drop the internal temperature of the steel to where it needs to be. Naturally, this assumes the same type of steel...
 
Hey Papafish, Great to hear from you.

Yeah, I was just pointing out the high hardenability characteristics of the 0-1. There is no worry if the spine does not harden all of the way though with the 1095. Three quarters of the blade will be very thin when I heat treat so there is no doubt that the important parts will quench quickly enough to harden.

One of your posts over a year and a half ago was the spur that started me down this path. I never dreamed I would go this far when I started
 
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I've mostly made 8/8s in the past with the Idea that if I make a mistake, I can still get a 7/8 out of it. The result has been a bunch of 8/8 razors. This time I aimed for 7/8 from the start.
 
Arrg. The paper I chose for my micarta wasn't dyed all the way through, so the edge reveal showed white. Did another layup today but it takes 24 hours to cure. Live and learn.
 
Arrg. The paper I chose for my micarta wasn't dyed all the way through, so the edge reveal showed white. Did another layup today but it takes 24 hours to cure. Live and learn.

Any chance you can post a pic? I don't know anything about micarta or making scales, but I am curious. thanks
 
The problem, if you still have them.
My wife left the camera at a friends, but I did dig the pieces out of the trash. Maybe I can get some pictures tomorrow.

Where the scales round off on the edges and expose the black laminations the edge of the color paper is exposed also. The result was an unattractive wide white line between the color and the underlying black paper.
 
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The top layer of the micarta is actually the same paper as the back round for the photos. It is very porous and seemed to pull up dye from the black underlying substrate. It came out kind of a nice mottled color.
 
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These pictures trying to show the grind are very hard for me to get right.

I think 7/8 is the perfect size for me. Not to big, not to small. This one hones right at 15* without tape, which is exactly where I was aiming.
 
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