Quote:
Originally Posted by Grayshadow95
I am also primarily a woodworker, so I understand where you are coming from. Many of my first knives were done using purchased finished blades that I installed the handles. Most of my woodworking tools worked fine for that. However, I did purchase a set of diamond files and a couple diamond sharpening stones. They made life much easier!
But I wanted to get into making my own blades. I purchased a used 1" x 30" belt sander at an estate sale, and some good metal grinding belts from Grainger. Then from the advise of good people here, I purchased some D2 from the New Jersey Steel Barron. Very good unhardened metal. It can be worked easily (?) with regular files and the belt sander. However, it must be normalized first, then heat treated when shaping is complete. Some very helpful people here provided those processes. I use a small electric kiln capable of reaching 2000 degrees for these procedures (also purchased at an estate sale.) It works great for anything shorter than 18 inches. I have less than $500 invested, and have been able to produce some what I think are respectable knives. I have some photos in the gallery under Grayshadow95 Knives. Currently working on three more with D2 steel.
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You don't normalize D2. You can't normalize D2. You end up with a martensitic blade after an air cool. D2 is one of those steels where you don't have much play room, as opposed to 52100 and others. A2 is another example of a steel that you just have to deal with what the chemistry gives you. D2 comes annealed, most always from a supply house like NJSB, and is simply austenitized, quenched, sub zero/or cryo, temper.
No normalizing or thermal cycling is done with D2, as again, you end up with a martensitic blade, because it will harden in air. If you did try a "normalizing" procedure with D2, you would have to anneal it again before you harden it, as it is not ideal to harden from a martensitic structure.
When you look up D2 in the Tool Steel handbooks, it even says "Do not normalize".