three of the five knives have just been hardened and are currently tempering in the toaster oven at 400.

i changed my oil today and use the old oil to quench. you're supposed to heat the oil first, so i dropped in a few of the hot coals before the knives. that seemed to work fine. then i put the cleaver in and POOF! Ignition! we had a grease fire. i quenched the bush knife and nessie quickly, before the oil got hot below the surface, then ran inside to get the baking soda out of the fridge.

gonna have to figure out how to avoid that next time.

Keep a lid handy to put on the container to deprive it of oxygen and make the fire go out.

I use old motor oil. Probably not the best, but it only burns at the blade/oil line and for only as long as the blade is hot enough. It goes out when the blade is cool enough or if the blade is removed.

that definitely was not the case today.

That stinks, man.

It may have been that the oil was already heated and the fact that multiple blades were dipped. I've never preheated nor done more than one blade at a time. I'm kinda slow when it comes to making knives. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

when are you doing the handles?