Bladesmithing - Trials and tribulations

I'd like to post pictures of my latest project. It failed to hold up to the rigors of heat-treating.

I'm a hobbyist bladesmith. I put about 8 hours of hand hammering and grinding into this knife before quenching it in water. Unfortunately I got the 'tink' of death, with two major cracks in it. This is the second time (of two) a blade of mine has 'died' during the quench... 100% rate of failure. :shocked3:







I'm posting this out of pure frustration, maybe the members here can appreciate the effort that goes into broken garbage.
Feel free to add any comments: Advice and criticism is welcome.

The forging looks really really nice from what I can see of the profile without examining the taper and bevels, very hard too show bevels anyway on film on a forged piece. Therefore I feel your pain.


Firstly what is the steel you have chosen, temperature and method of gauging temperature for quench and quenching, you say plain water rather than brine?

Cheers

Will

Thanks Will.
I did some grinding work to the blade before the pictures, so the shape appears much nicer then my actual abilities on the anvil. The steel is 1084 with a rustic/stupid quenching approach: Hot tap water, heated to temp by eye at night (see dancing shadows, then heat a bit hotter) over a frustratingly narrow heat source.

What properties do salt add to the quenchant?

Kip, you need to find yourself a fast oil for your quench. 1084 isn't too picky, canola oil warmed to about 120 F works just fine. You'll increase your success rate rather dramatically!
-Mark

Agree with the above, quench in a fast - ish oil is safest, you can still achieve hamon, differential hardening especially as you are forging some geometry first. Adding some salt to plain water makes it a bit thicker/slower quench than plain water, clay coat would also help. But you will have most satisfaction from a fast oil definitely. Not my speciality really, most of my stuff is in deeper hardening oil quench steels therefore I use a medium oil. Cheers

Will