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Heat Treating and Metallurgy Discussion of heat treatment and metallurgy in knife making.

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  #1  
Old 06-07-2012, 09:41 AM
hawk45 hawk45 is offline
 
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Rank easiest steels for DIY coal forge home heat treats

Getting hard to find steel these days. I've used 1084 with good results in the past but getting harder to find. I use a homemade coal/charcole forge to do my heat treats and found this easy with 1084 as I didn't have to be super accurate. I then would do 2-3 tempers.

Since 1084 is getting hard to find, from easiest to hardest order, what would some other options be for easy at home heat treats using a coal forge to bring up to temp? 1095, 1075, O1, etc?

Thanks,
John
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  #2  
Old 06-07-2012, 01:20 PM
WBE WBE is offline
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Google up Aldo Bruno. He has super 1084. Stick with 1080/84 with the equiptment you have. 01 requires soaking, and 1095 requires a very fast quench oil that I'm guessing you don't have or want to buy 5 gallons of.
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Old 06-07-2012, 07:46 PM
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DwaneOliver DwaneOliver is offline
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5160 makes a damm fine blade as well, and can be worked with the equipmet you already have.


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  #4  
Old 06-07-2012, 08:14 PM
EdStreet EdStreet is offline
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Wait, 1084 is getting hard to find? I was talking with admiral steel this past week and they have truck loads of the stuff. Well actually they list 1075/1080 on the catalog, works out to $1.02 per cubic inch.


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Old 06-07-2012, 09:34 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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If you stick with a hypoeutectic steel such as 1065, 5160 or 9260 or a eutectic steel 1075/1080 then you will not have to worry about soaking any longer than to get the steel heated all the way through. Alpha Knife Supply carries what they call 1080+ which is 1080 with just a little vanadium to help with hardening and probably retard grain growth. The 1065, which you can get from Kelly Cupples, is going to be real fast quenching, however. I would use brine or water with some detergent in it. You could also try 1060 but that would definitely be a water or brine quench and you might have a problem with slack quenching. Reduce your tempering temperatures for the lower carbon steels. Maybe 375-400 degrees.

BTW, 1084 is not the equivalent of 1075/1080. It's a hypereutectic steel (read >77 points carbon) and could do with a 5 minutes soak at around 1375-1400 degrees.

Doug


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Old 06-07-2012, 10:27 PM
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NJStricker NJStricker is offline
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Aldo is running low, and Blade is also going on. But give him a call when he gets back from the show. I did and he had some. It was in small enough quantities that he pulled it from the website, but he still had some.
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Old 06-08-2012, 07:23 AM
hawk45 hawk45 is offline
 
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Great stuff guys.. thanks for the advice.
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  #8  
Old 06-12-2012, 08:11 AM
Kevin R. Cashen Kevin R. Cashen is offline
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I am really glad you asked this question since most folks would approach steel selection solely on a functional basis and often overlook the need to match your tools to the steel you are working. I have a new lecture that I gave at the ABS hammer-in in AR dealing with a systematic approach to tool selection that seemed well received. It is taken from an entire chapter devoted to the subject in my book, If I ever get it done. The approach not only covers performance considerations but it also incorporates heavy consideration on skill level and how sophisticated the equipment for heat treating one has available.

The chemistry considerations break down into two major categories- carbon and alloying. Alloying is simple- the more of it, the more you need to be on top of things to get the most out of it. Carbon is a little different, due to the way it is utilized in the Fe/Fe3C -solid solution system. In normal people language- where it has to be put and how far you have to move it to put it there.

Around .8% is a magic number in carbon levels because it is the most efficient use of carbon in contributing to the various phases of steel. Known as the? eutectoid? point it is essentially the ?Goldilocks zone? for carbon content in steel. Less than .8% and you need extra time and heat to move the limited carbon through all the free iron (ferrite). More than .8% and you need to keep the temps lower and extend soak times so as not to over saturate with the excess carbon and be careful where you put it if you don?t put it into solution. At .8% the steel will go into full and trouble free solution at the lowest possible temperature in the least amount of time, quite handy for heat treating with nothing more than a forge. So with carbon considerations 1070, 1075, 1080 and 1084 are about the easiest to work with and are all about the same.

Due to its wide range of carbon levels W2 may or may not fall into this group as well. I personally do not go below .50% C for any using knife so the next easiest are the ?hypoetectoids? in the .55-.65 range. These can be considered ?easier? simply because they can tolerate more overheating, but then they also require more temperature to get into solution so it is kind of a wash. But there are some curve balls due to alloying in the three most common ones- 5160, 1060, and 6150. 1060 is like a carbon weak version of 1095 or 1090 in its lack of alloying that makes it very difficult to fully harden in the quench. 5160 makes up for this with alloying but that alloying tends to necessitate more temperature or time.

On the alloying side of things it is rather simple- the less of it, the simpler things get in working the steel. In the hardening operation alloying effects two major areas- how long you have to heat it and how quick you have to cool it and they are inverse of each other. Steels that easily harden with slower quenches will require more time, at precise temperatures, for soaking. This is why O-1 erroneously got a reputation as a beginners steel since it was so darned easy to harden in almost any quench, but it really does require a very careful and proper soak to harden to its full potential.

So from a working standpoint one could list the order of ease something like this:

1084 (manganese doesn?t mess much with soak time but makes hardening a breeze)
1070, 1075, 1080
Perhaps W2
15n20
5160
1095, W1, W2
O1
52100
L6
Etc?
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  #9  
Old 06-12-2012, 08:45 AM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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To piggy back a bit on what Kevin said, the W series of tool steels have a wide range of carbon content, from 60 points to over 100 points. Also, I've seen an assay for W1 from a supplier that listed vanadium in the mix and the W2 had some tungsten added as well. I understand that Aldo's 1084 had a little vanadium added to it, I imagine, to put a drag on grain growth or increase hardenability. I think that Alpha Knife Supply's 1080+ has a little chromium in it, maybe not the best if you're looking to produce a strong hamon. When you order steel try to get the actual assay for it. Typical assays could be ok if they represent to target that the foundry is shooting for not so great if all it means is that what the distributor typically orders or receives.

Doug


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