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

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  #1  
Old 03-02-2016, 01:15 PM
jdale jdale is offline
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Heat Treating 154CM

I am having a heck of a time narrowing down the proper HT formula for 154CM. I haven't had anything to do at work today so i have spent the last few hours trying to figure out how to HT the steel from Aldo, so far i have seen at least 5 different methods.

I have contacted Aldo but haven't heard anything back yet so hopefully someone on here can point me in the right direction. These recipes seemed to keep popping up

-Austenize at 1950F for 45-60 min
Plate quench
cryo treatment
temper @ 500F 2x 2hr
RC aprox 61

-Preheat blade to 1500F for 10min
Austenize at 2000F for 20 min
oil quench
Cryo treatment
temper @ 400-425F 4 Hrs
RC aprox 60-60.5

-Austenize at 1950F for 45 min
Plate quench
cryo treatment
temper @ 450F 2x 2hr
RC aprox 60-61

-Austenize at 1950F for 25 min
Plate quench
cryo treatment
temper @ 450F 2x 2hr
RC aprox 59-60


It seems from all the text that a 61RC is a sweet spot for this steel.
I will be using dry ice/acetone for my Cryo treatment.
I can oil quench or plate quench.

I don't have access to a hardness tester so I am kind of flailing in the dark here.
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  #2  
Old 03-02-2016, 03:42 PM
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Andrew Garrett Andrew Garrett is offline
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max speed ramp to 1950* - hold for 30mins
plate quench in SS foil.
No cryo
temp one hour at 400*. (second temp on larger knives)
59-60 RC


Just to add to your options. lol


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Old 03-02-2016, 07:04 PM
jdale jdale is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Garrett View Post

Just to add to your options. lol
Gah, not more options! Everything that I have seen recommends the cryo treatment. Is there a reason you don't cryo?
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Old 03-02-2016, 10:15 PM
Bob Hatfield Bob Hatfield is offline
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Many experts will tell you that cryo is really not needed for knife blades. Cryo is recommended if the steel is going to be used for precision instruments to stabilized the steel for that use in making precision instruments.
I do not cryo my S30V or D-2 steel with a goal of 60RC, but I do a triple quench on them and my customers rave about the blade's ability to hold it's sharp edge in the game field. I have heard that well known knife maker, Bob Dozier, known as "Mr. D-2" does not cryo his D-2 knives and they are famous for edge holding ability.
Most good knife makers will tell you if you are in doubt about the heat treatment, go to the maker of the steel and use their advice for your heat treating.


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Old 03-03-2016, 07:33 AM
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Andrew Garrett Andrew Garrett is offline
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At the risk of committing sacrilege...

I do not cryo because I don't have a cryo tank. I may never bother obtaining one.
My blades, like the ones Bob mentions, perform admirably without cryo. Therefore, I have no moral issues with making and proudly selling my knives even if (in theory) they are not as 'good' as I can make them in an academic sense (arguably).

I'm a hobby maker with limited funds for expensive equipment.
I am not making knives for astronauts or Navy SEALS (though I would if they ever called). I make knives meant to used like any pocket knife would be.

Some makers are driven by the challenge of wringing every bit of performance out of a piece of steel that it has to offer--they go to extreme lengths to achieve this. I am driven by making a useful object of beauty which performs well into the 'excellent' side of the bell curve. I focus a great deal on intelligent design and blade geometry.

As an aesthetics guy, I doubt I ever get into performance 'extremes', but I truly appreciate those makers who do, and I learn a great deal from them.

This is my knife journey, and I'm loving it!

Sorry to wax philosophical.


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Old 03-03-2016, 08:49 AM
WNC Goater WNC Goater is offline
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I think that is a pretty good and sound philosophy. I'm somewhat obsessive-compulsive in that everything I do, I want to do really well. I can get hung up on a tiny scratch that 99 out of 100 people would never notice. It will just bug me.
But that's aesthetics, and performance wise, I believe we can get hung up on perfection and in so doing, take the joy out of the craft. Trying to push the envelope well past a reasonable performance parameter, to me, gets into the realm of unreasonableness. Again, 99 out of 100 people would never notice. There was a recent thread on here beating to death the "perfect" heat treatment of 1095, which was a good example of this. Several people suggested the OP was perhaps "overthinking" it a bit, as 1095 is not really difficult. This person would NOT be satisfied with the advice given him by people with tons of experience, he wanted verified FACTS. I realize pushing that envelope IS the fun for some people, and so I live and let live, and bowed out of that particular conversation. (As an aside, in the end he found his "facts" which were pretty much right on with the info he had already been provided.)

It seems in the knife world there is this conventional wisdom that a blade is considered "fine" if it will baton through firewood, shave the hair off your arm, and slice through paper. That always humors me.
Buy a camp ax, a razor, and some scissors if that is the need of the user, but it serves as a poor benchmark for measuring the quality of a knife IMO. (edit to add, yes the knives I have made to date will do that. Must be great knives!)


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Last edited by WNC Goater; 03-03-2016 at 09:15 AM.
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Old 03-03-2016, 01:01 PM
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Andrew Garrett Andrew Garrett is offline
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Well said Goater!

I will just add this:

Consider how much of what we do to push the performance extremes is done because the knife truly needs those extreme characteristics because:

The user is going to be knife-fighting demons inside an erupting volcano...

vs.

These kinds of extreme performance stats help sell knives

Marketing is a big part of our craft, even for hobbyists like myself. I just do not, at this point in my career, see the need to invest more money in the form of equipment and/or time into achieving higher performance levels than I already do. It is a case of diminishing returns in my shop.

Peace!


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Old 03-16-2016, 06:17 PM
jimmontg jimmontg is offline
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Wink I was taught cryo helped maintain flexibility.

For me and the cryo it's a bit different. I have forged knives, but I don't anymore. I make kit knives and it will be marked as a wildcat skinner blade from TKS with cryo. With the blades that are treated that way, especially 440c, it makes a difference. When I made knives out of D2 at work they benefited from a soak under dry ice. But NO acetone! Use diesel fuel or kerosene if you must use a liquid. I just put the knives between two pieces of dry ice and left them over 24 hours. I make my own blades too, but if I see a premade blade I like I will buy it. Alex at Texas Knifemakers Supply will Rc any blades that you buy from them if requested. They also are quite affordable for HT, but they do not do any oil quench steels.

I was taught that you can temper your blades back a Rc point or two and the cryo would bring it back about a point, but it will be a more flexible blade. My son's filet knife was D2 and it was Rc 59.7 after cryo with dry ice, but it was as flexible as at the double tempered 57.8 Rc. Now whether that is true or not I cannot say for sure, but it is what I was taught back in the 90's. It will help the blade to retain flexibility while maintaining edge holding as well. Also the cryo wasn't helpful for alloys that didn't have much chromium or vanadium. I asked once if cryo would help with O1 as I never cryo'd it as it has such a small percentage of chrome at 0.5%, but I've been wondering about it as it has vanadium and tungsten as well. Does anyone else know about this?

Oh and completely off topic if you have tried to bend either aluminum or brass extrusions and they cracked the solution is simple. Take a torch, any kind is suitable if it can bring the metal up to about 500 degrees F in the area to be bent. I always used a piece of pine and rubbed it on the metal until it started to burn it. You then have about 2 to 4 hours to bend the extrusion, after that time it will revert back to it's same brittleness. I used to make hand rails and some alloys cracked or broke when we put them in the pipe bender. I've bent brass and aluminum bar and it did the same. Hope that helps somebody.

Last edited by jimmontg; 03-16-2016 at 06:20 PM.
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154cm, advice, back, blade, blades, cryo, demo, design, edge, folding knife, heat, heat treatment, hobby, how to, knife, knives, makers, making, pocket knife, s30v, scratch, sharp, steel, temper


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