Thread: Ht issue
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Old 10-29-2017, 03:38 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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Hardenability is a function of the alloying elements, primarily chromium, not carbon content as much. If the 1080 that is being used is more like the traditional alloy then no matter what you heat the spine to it will have too much mass to allow the formation of martensite. There is the possibility, however, that only the the edge of the blade was austenized in the forge before the quench and a little extra time was needed to equilize the temperature throughout the blade.

As far as the quenchant goes, maybe going to a fast commercial oil or gritting your teeth and using brine you might keep the steel in the spine from crossing the pearlite start line on the cooling curve but, depending on the exact alloy of the steel, you might not be able to prevent it.

I too prefer to have a fully hardened blade but be aware that there are many who think that a blade should have a soft spine and will go out of their way to create one with a hamom. If you are making a blade the the AKS performance test you pretty much have to make one with a soft spine.

Doug


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