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

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  #1  
Old 03-14-2012, 11:03 PM
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Rog Rog is offline
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Rog, working with M-2, and 5160

Well I'm back, been re-working my shop, buying books and studying. Bought The wonder of knife making by Goddard, (looks like He's still using His goop, humm), the complete blade smith by Hrisoulas, one on pocket knife making for beginners, and one on heat treating, and read a couple more on heat treating a friend had. Well, I put the M-2 in a vise, broke like glass, real fine grain! What temp and soak time do I use to normalize it ? I have a HT oven, and a good gas forge. I am also thinking about buying some 5160 and doing stock removal. Do I soak it at critical temp, (and for how long), or just get to critical then quench, and temper? Is there a certain temp that I should hold the 5160 at, or is non-magnetic OK? I will be testing the M-2, and the 5160, for cutting and breaking. Will edge quenching work on the 5160? I want to be able to make a tough hunter or fighter. I got people in law enforcement, and the military wanting knives. Won't make any till I trust myself. Can't let them down. Help fellas!
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Old 03-15-2012, 09:52 AM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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I have to go to the books to answer this one. For the 5160 I would use a temperature of 1500 degrees and hold it long enough to make sure that it's heated all the way through, maybe a minute. That's about what I hold 9260 for, which heat treats pretty much the same. Being that it's a hypoeutectic steel it doesn't require a long soak to dissolve carbides and you will want to soak at just above upper critical temperatures.

Bad news on the M2. You can't normalize it because it is an air quenching steel. If you want to soften it for grinding you will have to anneal it. What I recommend is that you go to ASM International, open a free account, and buy a data sheet, or sheets, from them. It will probably cost you $15-20 for each item and it will down load right to your computer. What I would expect is having to heat it to about 1750 degrees and holding it for maybe as long as 15 minutes prior to queching. With all the vanadium, molybdenum, and tungsten in it there are going to be a lot of carbides that are going to have to dissolve to release carbon into solution in the austinite. It might also be complex enough to have a secondary hardening peak during tempering but I would have to check the data on it to be able to tell.

With all the tungsten and vanadium in the alloy you will not have to worry as much about grain growth in M2 as much as you will for other simpler steels. This is good because there is no way around having to soak it at higher temperatures. This is also not a steel that I would pick for a heavy use blade that would be doing a bunch or chopping or prying. It's just going to be a little on the brittle side. That would be a better application for the 5160. I would save the M2 for something like a caper or a blade intended or cutting without a lot of lateral stress being put on the knife.

Doug


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Old 03-15-2012, 10:30 AM
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Thanks Doug! May I ask why you use 9260?
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Old 03-15-2012, 10:47 AM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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I kind of started using 9260 by accident. I was looking at 5160 but people were having a bit of trouble with what they were getting from their suppliers and someone mentioned 9260 so I gave it a look. There is only one supplier who will sell in small orders, that I know of, who has it and only in two size. That Admiral Steel. I found one other supplier who could supply it but only with a $2000 minimum order.

9260 is not a shallow hardening as 1060 but shallower hardening than 5160. You can still do differential hardening by clay coating which would be difficult or impossible with 5160. However, it probably would not give a "natural" quench line like 1060 would.

Doug


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Old 03-15-2012, 11:26 AM
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Man! I thought everybody used 5160? "I found this "Alabama Damascus Steel & Cutlery", that sells it in 1/8, 3/16, and 5/32, in 12" by 1 1/4" for ten bucks a piece. Thought about some for stock removal, and edge quenching for rough use knives. Would you "not" recommend? What would you recommend, 1080?
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  #6  
Old 03-16-2012, 11:05 AM
Kevin R. Cashen Kevin R. Cashen is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rog View Post
Well I'm back, been re-working my shop, buying books and studying. Bought The wonder of knife making by Goddard, (looks like He's still using His goop, humm), the complete blade smith by Hrisoulas, one on pocket knife making for beginners, and one on heat treating, and read a couple more on heat treating a friend had. Well, I put the M-2 in a vise, broke like glass, real fine grain! What temp and soak time do I use to normalize it ? I have a HT oven, and a good gas forge. I am also thinking about buying some 5160 and doing stock removal. Do I soak it at critical temp, (and for how long), or just get to critical then quench, and temper? Is there a certain temp that I should hold the 5160 at, or is non-magnetic OK? I will be testing the M-2, and the 5160, for cutting and breaking. Will edge quenching work on the 5160? I want to be able to make a tough hunter or fighter. I got people in law enforcement, and the military wanting knives. Won't make any till I trust myself. Can't let them down. Help fellas!
The Wonder of Knifemaking is a very good book that kills me that I have to give it a 9 instead of a 10 because of two pages on quenchants, the rest is really good stuff for clearing up a lot of misunderstandings about making knives, I find myself saying "right on, right on!" Whenever I read a copy of it. I think Doug is giving you good input here, I would only add that I have found added benefits to a good soaking with 5160 due to its chromium and lower carbon levels, a little more soak will get the carbon freed up and evenly distributed. That being said there are countless makers who have simply heated it to nonmagnetic and quenched and are very happy with the results. I found the extra efforts in soaking to unlock a bit more of its potential, particularly with a smaller blade that will need be more of an edge holder. I have also done hamons with 5160 many years ago, it requires you go much heavier on the clay and the lines will need to be pretty simple.
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Old 03-16-2012, 01:21 PM
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Thank you much Kevin. Do I really need the clay to edge quench?
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  #8  
Old 03-16-2012, 02:16 PM
Kevin R. Cashen Kevin R. Cashen is offline
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Depends on what you are shooting for, that is just the way I have always preferred to do it when going for a nice visual.
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Old 03-16-2012, 05:39 PM
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I have a bucket of good refractory mud. How thick, and how much comes off in the quench? Thanks Kevin!
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Old 10-11-2012, 03:51 AM
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Old 10-11-2012, 07:11 AM
Surfaceimprovem Surfaceimprovem is offline
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  #12  
Old 10-16-2012, 07:41 AM
Imakethings Imakethings is offline
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A bit late to the question, but AKS posts a fair bit of basic HT information on their site:
http://www.alphaknifesupply.com/bladematerials.htm

Most of it is pretty decent for info and a basic guideline.
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