hey guys I’m Nate I’m the new hack Smith
and today on make it real we’re gonna be
showing you how to heat treat steel to
add a permanent edge to your knives I
[Applause]
guys of course I’m not taking over but
Callie and I are here in Canada and we
decided to stop by the hack Smith here
at hack Smith industries we’ve got a fun
project to do yeah today we’re gonna be
heat treating steel to show you how to
give it a solid edge to your knives or
any kind of weapons you want to make
like we make on the Exmouth channel so
to do some tests on the steel we thought
James would probably have some really
good equipment and maybe some stylized
weapons that we could really use as a
stress test this is the best day of my
life here’s the basic idea
we’re going to show how to heat treat
and temper some high carbon steel and
then show some side-by-side comparisons
of what happens if you hit each one with
Thor’s hammer I may not be worthy this
is why I don’t actually get to take over
the channel is can’t I just can’t
so we ordered some steel delivered to
your shop do you get that is special
steel that we want to use for this video
I believe it was a 10 84 and 84 yeah
yeah we put on this box right here so
cally you can go ahead and open it up
and get start on this experiment it says
do not open do okay Oh different yeah
read between the lines that seems too
easy given the way that do what I want
to know what’s about to happen to me oh
you’re fine
this isn’t jump scared so where’s our
steel James I’m going back to America
all right well our steel was not
actually in Pandora’s box so this this
looks kind of like the steel that you
would get at Home Depot or Lowe’s any
hardware type store but it’s not the
highest quality steel which for a lot of
things doesn’t matter it works so well
for so many things this specifically is
a type of high carbon steel and as
you’re saying it’s 1084 steel this is
usually used as a knife making steel so
the 8/4 stands for 0.84% carbon which is
how much carbon is actually in the steel
and what that means is
actually keep treat this to make it even
harder than it is right now and we’ll
show you how hard it is by actually
doing a few destructive tests before and
after we heat treat it okay so James
destructive test this is my favorite
thing I’ve ever heard of okay so I think
we should at least try a file on one
let’s try and see if we can bend one
what weapons do you have that we could
use against these I think the bending
one ilknur we actually use Mjolnir as a
variable swing press for forming
sheetmetal the way that this steel
arrives when you order it this is in
what’s called an annealed state it has
had a treatment but that heat treatment
is basically what weakens it the most it
just brings it to a relatively soft
stage obviously it’s still hard it’s
still a bar of Steel it’s not like putty
clay or glass or anything like that
but it’s not as hard as we want it to be
if we’re actually going to use it as a
tool so that’s that’s the whole point is
to see what we can do to this to change
it and we need a baseline so Callie was
saying we’ll use a file you’re saying we
can use mule neared to try and Bend or
maybe even shatter it and let’s test it
out before we heat treat it and heat
treat it and test it again after all
right so we’ve got our control steel
which is as we bought it from the steel
company so it’s basically just a kneeled
right now then we’re going to heat up
these pieces so it’d be heat treated and
we’ll be quenching those and then the
tempered ones we exact same as the heat
treat but after we’ve quenched them
where are you gonna reheat them in the
oven to temper them to make it as strong
as possible all right so let’s start by
actually heat treating these piece of
steel so we’ve got our our control steel
which we’re gonna leave over here and
then we’re actually going to be doing
the same heat treating process to all
four of these and we’ve got a kiln here
now the kiln is actually it’s pretty
power hungry so we’ve got an arc reactor
here boom and you wanna take 25 yeah
reset the 8:09 at the moment different
types of Steel are gonna have different
temperatures that you need to get them
up to what we’re using this 1084 steel
one of the reasons we’re using it is
it’s actually probably the most
forgiving type of high carbon steel
there is it’s one of the easiest to get
a good heat treatment on there are some
types where you need very precise
temperatures for a really precise amount
of time and then to cool it down in
exactly the right material
for the exact right amount of time the
heat we’re going to be using for our
steel is 815 Celsius which is about 1500
degrees Fahrenheit
yeah let’s see how many we can fit in at
one time yeah once this is all heated up
and our steel is nice and orange hot the
next step is going to be quenching it in
oil good cooking oil work actually yes
for some types of Steel you have to be
pretty particular about what you quench
it in but again this 1084 usually quite
forgiving so we are going to use
vegetable oil however to make it work a
little bit better
it needs to be a little bit thinner and
to do that we’re going to heat it up to
about 55 degrees Celsius or around 130
Fahrenheit it’s not there what’s your
[Music]
is this not how most people heat up
their cooking oil tell I could bretons
yeah let’s see that’s not nothing we’re
good so we’re now at a temperature like
I can stick my finger in and after a few
seconds it starts to get a little bit
painful like oh that’s that’s hotter
than I want which is kind of what we’re
going for about 110 Fahrenheit is sort
of the upper limit of what you can leave
your hand in without it starting to burn
and so the fact that it is getting too
hot is a good sign
our kiln has reached 8:15 well it’s
actually gotten up to 822 right in the
range we’re looking for so at this point
the steel and the carbon have begun to
change how they’re interacting and at
this temperature the steel has begun to
form a crystalline structure called
Austin tight that’s a phase of the steel
where it’s just the carbon is not
actually interacting much with the iron
inside and as a result of being heated
up and forming that Austin tight it
should have actually lost its magnetism
which is a good way for us to test if
the steel is actually as hot as we
wanted James what have you got there
I’ve got a magnet and as you can tell
the steel is very magnetic but
hypothetically the red-hot steel in
there should not be very magnetic
anymore yeah let’s go over the first one
so Cal you can open the kiln I’m gonna
grab one of these pull it out and put it
right into the oil and gently swirl it
around I probably don’t actually need to
be gentle with this stuff because it’s
quite thick I don’t think we have to
worry about these just straight steel
balls the first few seconds so where it
really changes temperature the most and
that should be where it changes state
from awesome tight to martensite you
might pull it right out of my pliers
yeah it’s back to magnetic oh yeah
and now it’s there forever yeah back to
very magnetic
alright supporting the hot steel into
the oil probably raise the overall
temperature the oil – we’re gonna add
just a little bit of cool oil to drop
all right last one all right so we’ve
quenched the first three using oil but
I’d like to use a technique that we use
with some of our projects and that’s
quenching with styrofoam and Kelly I
just want you to drop the piece of steel
right I’ve never been happy about
something yep let’s do this there’s your
all right so because a lot of the steel
actually flaked off from the heating we
actually lost our scribe mark so I’m
just gonna write down which ones are
which again and we’re gonna go ahead and
continue the tempering process all right
say these are the kitchen
that’s the kitchen huh good kitchen
what a kitchen I love it oh yeah
absolutely your oven we put it in heat
it up in the oven yep so we’ll just set
it at 425 let it heat up in the oven
we’re gonna let that run for two hours
turn the oven off and let it cool down
in the oven as well all right so we’ve
gone ahead and let our metal heat for
two hours and then we let it just cool
down it’s time to take it out and see
what’s happened so we’ve got our plain
annealed steel and then we have our heat
treated steel and then we have our heat
treated and tempered steel so now all we
have to do is test it out see the
difference between them all this
particular version of mjolnir way is how
much 73 pounds it bent a nice little
bend there this is the untreated this is
just the steel as it arrives to us I’m
gonna put some safety glasses on this
time this has been heat treated but not
tempered beautiful survived it just
snapped right off look at that
difference between plain steel I bent a
little bit and hardened each field this
is sort of a universal law of solid
materials the harder something gets the
less flexible it is and we’ve made this
quite a bit harder and so it’s a lot
less flexible O’Kelly I want to smash
one right here I do I really do I am
[Music]
now if everything has gone just right
with our tempering this piece should not
crack the same way ideally it will sort
of spring it will actually like take
some impact and bounce back so it won’t
Bend and it won’t break what’s the other
one I was able to shatter it there
should be technically if we did this
right no way that even with my older I
shouldn’t be able to break this faith in
our tempered steel uh no I don’t okay
it’s like it’s pretty like a lot and
then just no right back so are three
types of steel what would we get if we
made knives out of each of these well
for the first one what you’re gonna get
is you’re gonna be able to file it down
it’s gonna look pretty and then you’re
gonna try and use it and it’s going to
be useless so you don’t keep an edge on
this at all second one the heat
treatment what would we get with a knife
out of this now with that you would be
able to get a really sharp edge but you
can encountered any other stronger
materials
you’re gonna chip it you’re gonna dent
it not dense sorry it’s gonna chip yeah
and it’s gonna make a useless knife
because then you got a burr and then
won’t cut nice anymore then we’ve got
our tempered bar of Steel and this is
what we want so we would shape it
without doing any heat treating and then
you heat treat it and temper it and if
you make a knife out of that you get
something useful you get something
that’s much harder but also isn’t so
brittle we saw how well that sprung back
after we hit it with the hammer compared
to the annealed steel which just bent
stayed that way if you do hit something
hard with the blade you’d be able to
straighten it back out you’ll be able to
hone it sharpen it it’s gonna do what
you want it to do and if you even want
to get a little rougher with it maybe do
a little bit of prying which isn’t what
knives are usually for but these things
come up it’s got some flex to it it’s
not just gonna snap off the first time
you try something like that or even if
you just drop it on the ground if you’re
unlucky that’s the difference we can see
what happens to the steel with the heat
treating and why we want to do that
you’ve probably seen some of the cool
stuff in the background or us
interacting with it he’s almost
certainly got a video or two or more on
his channel showing how he made those
things they are super cool
gotta go check him out links down in the
description not something you want to
miss as you guys know we’ve got lots
more content for you all you have to do
is hit that button hit that box to the
top you’ll go directly to our last video
you’ll want to check that out the other
box is gonna show you what YouTube
thinks you should be watching next we’ve
hit this bomb here in the middle you’ll
be subscribed to the channel that way
you’re never gonna miss out on a cool
video don’t forget to hit that Bell and
we’ll see you in the next one talk to you back with
and today on make it real we’re gonna be
showing you how to heat treat steel to
add a permanent edge to your knives I
[Applause]
guys of course I’m not taking over but
Callie and I are here in Canada and we
decided to stop by the hack Smith here
at hack Smith industries we’ve got a fun
project to do yeah today we’re gonna be
heat treating steel to show you how to
give it a solid edge to your knives or
any kind of weapons you want to make
like we make on the Exmouth channel so
to do some tests on the steel we thought
James would probably have some really
good equipment and maybe some stylized
weapons that we could really use as a
stress test this is the best day of my
life here’s the basic idea
we’re going to show how to heat treat
and temper some high carbon steel and
then show some side-by-side comparisons
of what happens if you hit each one with
Thor’s hammer I may not be worthy this
is why I don’t actually get to take over
the channel is can’t I just can’t
so we ordered some steel delivered to
your shop do you get that is special
steel that we want to use for this video
I believe it was a 10 84 and 84 yeah
yeah we put on this box right here so
cally you can go ahead and open it up
and get start on this experiment it says
do not open do okay Oh different yeah
read between the lines that seems too
easy given the way that do what I want
to know what’s about to happen to me oh
you’re fine
this isn’t jump scared so where’s our
steel James I’m going back to America
all right well our steel was not
actually in Pandora’s box so this this
looks kind of like the steel that you
would get at Home Depot or Lowe’s any
hardware type store but it’s not the
highest quality steel which for a lot of
things doesn’t matter it works so well
for so many things this specifically is
a type of high carbon steel and as
you’re saying it’s 1084 steel this is
usually used as a knife making steel so
the 8/4 stands for 0.84% carbon which is
how much carbon is actually in the steel
and what that means is
actually keep treat this to make it even
harder than it is right now and we’ll
show you how hard it is by actually
doing a few destructive tests before and
after we heat treat it okay so James
destructive test this is my favorite
thing I’ve ever heard of okay so I think
we should at least try a file on one
let’s try and see if we can bend one
what weapons do you have that we could
use against these I think the bending
one ilknur we actually use Mjolnir as a
variable swing press for forming
sheetmetal the way that this steel
arrives when you order it this is in
what’s called an annealed state it has
had a treatment but that heat treatment
is basically what weakens it the most it
just brings it to a relatively soft
stage obviously it’s still hard it’s
still a bar of Steel it’s not like putty
clay or glass or anything like that
but it’s not as hard as we want it to be
if we’re actually going to use it as a
tool so that’s that’s the whole point is
to see what we can do to this to change
it and we need a baseline so Callie was
saying we’ll use a file you’re saying we
can use mule neared to try and Bend or
maybe even shatter it and let’s test it
out before we heat treat it and heat
treat it and test it again after all
right so we’ve got our control steel
which is as we bought it from the steel
company so it’s basically just a kneeled
right now then we’re going to heat up
these pieces so it’d be heat treated and
we’ll be quenching those and then the
tempered ones we exact same as the heat
treat but after we’ve quenched them
where are you gonna reheat them in the
oven to temper them to make it as strong
as possible all right so let’s start by
actually heat treating these piece of
steel so we’ve got our our control steel
which we’re gonna leave over here and
then we’re actually going to be doing
the same heat treating process to all
four of these and we’ve got a kiln here
now the kiln is actually it’s pretty
power hungry so we’ve got an arc reactor
here boom and you wanna take 25 yeah
reset the 8:09 at the moment different
types of Steel are gonna have different
temperatures that you need to get them
up to what we’re using this 1084 steel
one of the reasons we’re using it is
it’s actually probably the most
forgiving type of high carbon steel
there is it’s one of the easiest to get
a good heat treatment on there are some
types where you need very precise
temperatures for a really precise amount
of time and then to cool it down in
exactly the right material
for the exact right amount of time the
heat we’re going to be using for our
steel is 815 Celsius which is about 1500
degrees Fahrenheit
yeah let’s see how many we can fit in at
one time yeah once this is all heated up
and our steel is nice and orange hot the
next step is going to be quenching it in
oil good cooking oil work actually yes
for some types of Steel you have to be
pretty particular about what you quench
it in but again this 1084 usually quite
forgiving so we are going to use
vegetable oil however to make it work a
little bit better
it needs to be a little bit thinner and
to do that we’re going to heat it up to
about 55 degrees Celsius or around 130
Fahrenheit it’s not there what’s your
[Music]
is this not how most people heat up
their cooking oil tell I could bretons
yeah let’s see that’s not nothing we’re
good so we’re now at a temperature like
I can stick my finger in and after a few
seconds it starts to get a little bit
painful like oh that’s that’s hotter
than I want which is kind of what we’re
going for about 110 Fahrenheit is sort
of the upper limit of what you can leave
your hand in without it starting to burn
and so the fact that it is getting too
hot is a good sign
our kiln has reached 8:15 well it’s
actually gotten up to 822 right in the
range we’re looking for so at this point
the steel and the carbon have begun to
change how they’re interacting and at
this temperature the steel has begun to
form a crystalline structure called
Austin tight that’s a phase of the steel
where it’s just the carbon is not
actually interacting much with the iron
inside and as a result of being heated
up and forming that Austin tight it
should have actually lost its magnetism
which is a good way for us to test if
the steel is actually as hot as we
wanted James what have you got there
I’ve got a magnet and as you can tell
the steel is very magnetic but
hypothetically the red-hot steel in
there should not be very magnetic
anymore yeah let’s go over the first one
so Cal you can open the kiln I’m gonna
grab one of these pull it out and put it
right into the oil and gently swirl it
around I probably don’t actually need to
be gentle with this stuff because it’s
quite thick I don’t think we have to
worry about these just straight steel
balls the first few seconds so where it
really changes temperature the most and
that should be where it changes state
from awesome tight to martensite you
might pull it right out of my pliers
yeah it’s back to magnetic oh yeah
and now it’s there forever yeah back to
very magnetic
alright supporting the hot steel into
the oil probably raise the overall
temperature the oil – we’re gonna add
just a little bit of cool oil to drop
all right last one all right so we’ve
quenched the first three using oil but
I’d like to use a technique that we use
with some of our projects and that’s
quenching with styrofoam and Kelly I
just want you to drop the piece of steel
right I’ve never been happy about
something yep let’s do this there’s your
all right so because a lot of the steel
actually flaked off from the heating we
actually lost our scribe mark so I’m
just gonna write down which ones are
which again and we’re gonna go ahead and
continue the tempering process all right
say these are the kitchen
that’s the kitchen huh good kitchen
what a kitchen I love it oh yeah
absolutely your oven we put it in heat
it up in the oven yep so we’ll just set
it at 425 let it heat up in the oven
we’re gonna let that run for two hours
turn the oven off and let it cool down
in the oven as well all right so we’ve
gone ahead and let our metal heat for
two hours and then we let it just cool
down it’s time to take it out and see
what’s happened so we’ve got our plain
annealed steel and then we have our heat
treated steel and then we have our heat
treated and tempered steel so now all we
have to do is test it out see the
difference between them all this
particular version of mjolnir way is how
much 73 pounds it bent a nice little
bend there this is the untreated this is
just the steel as it arrives to us I’m
gonna put some safety glasses on this
time this has been heat treated but not
tempered beautiful survived it just
snapped right off look at that
difference between plain steel I bent a
little bit and hardened each field this
is sort of a universal law of solid
materials the harder something gets the
less flexible it is and we’ve made this
quite a bit harder and so it’s a lot
less flexible O’Kelly I want to smash
one right here I do I really do I am
[Music]
now if everything has gone just right
with our tempering this piece should not
crack the same way ideally it will sort
of spring it will actually like take
some impact and bounce back so it won’t
Bend and it won’t break what’s the other
one I was able to shatter it there
should be technically if we did this
right no way that even with my older I
shouldn’t be able to break this faith in
our tempered steel uh no I don’t okay
it’s like it’s pretty like a lot and
then just no right back so are three
types of steel what would we get if we
made knives out of each of these well
for the first one what you’re gonna get
is you’re gonna be able to file it down
it’s gonna look pretty and then you’re
gonna try and use it and it’s going to
be useless so you don’t keep an edge on
this at all second one the heat
treatment what would we get with a knife
out of this now with that you would be
able to get a really sharp edge but you
can encountered any other stronger
materials
you’re gonna chip it you’re gonna dent
it not dense sorry it’s gonna chip yeah
and it’s gonna make a useless knife
because then you got a burr and then
won’t cut nice anymore then we’ve got
our tempered bar of Steel and this is
what we want so we would shape it
without doing any heat treating and then
you heat treat it and temper it and if
you make a knife out of that you get
something useful you get something
that’s much harder but also isn’t so
brittle we saw how well that sprung back
after we hit it with the hammer compared
to the annealed steel which just bent
stayed that way if you do hit something
hard with the blade you’d be able to
straighten it back out you’ll be able to
hone it sharpen it it’s gonna do what
you want it to do and if you even want
to get a little rougher with it maybe do
a little bit of prying which isn’t what
knives are usually for but these things
come up it’s got some flex to it it’s
not just gonna snap off the first time
you try something like that or even if
you just drop it on the ground if you’re
unlucky that’s the difference we can see
what happens to the steel with the heat
treating and why we want to do that
you’ve probably seen some of the cool
stuff in the background or us
interacting with it he’s almost
certainly got a video or two or more on
his channel showing how he made those
things they are super cool
gotta go check him out links down in the
description not something you want to
miss as you guys know we’ve got lots
more content for you all you have to do
is hit that button hit that box to the
top you’ll go directly to our last video
you’ll want to check that out the other
box is gonna show you what YouTube
thinks you should be watching next we’ve
hit this bomb here in the middle you’ll
be subscribed to the channel that way
you’re never gonna miss out on a cool
video don’t forget to hit that Bell and
we’ll see you in the next one talk to you back with
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