Can you heat-treat a stainless steel blade without a kiln ? 22 September 2023
Can stainless steel be quenched without a heat-treatment kiln?
It's a question we're often asked! Many knife-makers who are used to working with carbon steel want to take their skills to the next level, by tackling stainless steel. The advantages of stainless steel, which is used to make knife blades, are numerous: and the main one is that these are grades of steel that won't rust... Provided they're properly hardened and tempered !
Heat treatment of stainless steel requires equipment, in particular one of the grails of the knifemaker : a proper heat-treatment furnace. Said furnace makes it possible to reach very high temperatures (1100 to 1150°C), in a precise manner, and to maintain them for long periods of time, necessary for the proper austenitisation of stainless steels.
So can we harden and temper a stainless steel blade properly without the tempering furnace? Can satisfactory results be obtained by hardening stainless steel in a coal or gas forge?
The answer is no! At least, you won't get satisfactory results by hardening and tempering stainless steel in a forge. All stainless steels require strict maintenance at a precise temperature throughout the austenitisation phase, which is impossible (or very difficult) to do with a forge. To get the best out of stainless steel in knifemaking, we strongly advise you to harden them in a hardening furnace: it is only through a properly conducted heat treatment that stainless steel will resist corrosion properly.
In addition, when heat-treating a stainless steel blade, it is strongly recommended that the blade is protected from oxygen by means of a protective atmosphere. Properly protecting a stainless steel blade during heat treatment helps prevent oxidation and scaling after austenitisation. We'll tell you more in a future blog post!
But I don't have a kiln for heat-treating my stainless steel blades!
Don't have a dedicated kiln ? Do you want to harden your stainless steel blades without a hardening furnace? Eurotechni is there for you: we can heat treat your blades! Send us an email using the contact form on the website, and we'll get back to you with a quote.
You can also order the heat treatment of your stainless steel knife blades directly from our website: visit our online shop!
Where can I find a cheap heat treatment kiln ?
Would you like to experiment on your own? Do you need a heat-treatment furnace to take your work to the next level? Discover our range of furnaces for knife makers directly on our website. We work with Prederi Vittorio & Figli, an Italian company specialising in heat treatment furnaces since 1960! If you're looking for cheap, high-quality, high-performance tempering ovens, don't wait any longer and visit our cutlery tools section to browse the range of tempering ovens available: shipped free of charge throughout Europe !
