violafox•18d agoProlific Poster

Heat treated my first blade in a toaster oven and it actually worked

I read on iforgeiron that you can temper 1084 steel at 400°F for an hour, so I tossed a test piece in my kitchen toaster oven. It came out hard enough to scratch glass - who knew a $20 appliance could do that?

2 comments

2 Comments

jamie_clark18d ago

Tossed a test piece in my kitchen toaster oven" - I gotta be careful with that. Most toaster ovens don't hold temp steady, they cycle on and off by a lot. You could end up with soft spots or uneven hardness. Did you check the actual temp with an oven thermometer?

logan_thomas8718d ago

Even one of those cheap laser thermometers would be better than nothing to check surface temp before you pull it. But here's something nobody's talking about - the toaster oven element placement. Most have them right at the top and bottom, which means you get way more radiant heat than a convection oven. That can mess with how the clay cures at the molecular level, leaving you with a piece that looks hard but crumbles when you drill into it later. I've seen it happen with people trying to speed up the process. The element cycling issue is real too but at least you can rotate the piece mid cycle.