Quote Originally Posted by Toxxyc View Post
If you don't have access to furnaces and things, how would you harden the blade's steel then? Just heat it up in a fire until it loses magnetic properties and douse in oil?
It depends on the type of steel. For stainless, it's better to use a professional service until you can get or make a proper heat treating furnace. For something like leaf springs (5160) or K460 (o1), heating until non-magnetic plus a few seconds for luck, then quenching in warm canola oil is all that's needed.

I say canola or vegetable oil because it smells much, much better than trying motor oil or whatever concoctions you may find on the internet. I also gave the AISI designations because generally there is more information on the American sites, and they use different names for the steels.

A suitable heat treating forge can be made with as little as 3 firebricks (Contractor counter at builder's warehouse is where I got mine), a piece of mild steel pipe and a hair dryer. Bricks in a u-shape contain the heat, bury one end of the pipe in charcoal and duct tape the hair dryer to the other end. Should be more than enough heat for simple or low alloy steels.