Thanks to both of you for clearing these things up! Now, I trust and believe what you say as you have a lot more experience about these things than I do, but I'll just copy this off of verhoeven pdf's page 101:
"During tempering the martensite begins to decompose into ferrite and carbides. At the
lowest tempering temperatures very fine metastable carbides (usually epsilon carbide, Fe2.4C)
form (called stage 1 tempering) and at higher temperatures they are replaced by the usual
carbide, cementite, Fe3C, (stage 3). At intermediate temperatures, if retained austenite is
present it will decompose (stage 2)."
|