Just realized that vinegar for quenching high carbon steel actually works

Tbh, I thought it was a total myth until I tried it on a 1084 knife blade last week and got a way harder edge. Anyone else use weird household stuff for tempering?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_betty1mo ago

Wait, actual vinegar from the kitchen... that's wild. My brain just can't process that working on steel.

viola_butler1mo ago

Yeah, the "actual vinegar from the kitchen" thing gets me too. It's like we're trained to think real fixes need special chemicals from a hardware store. I clean my shower head with it instead of CLR, and it works better. My grandma used to soak pennies in it to make them shiny. We're surrounded by simple stuff that works, but we keep buying the fancy bottle with the scary warning labels.