52100 & w2 heat treat

badgerknives

Well-Known Member
how do i heat treat 52100 and w2? i have the satinite for the w2 but i want to to know how hot to temper it at and how hot to get the water? oh and what about 52100 i know i need to heat it to nonmagnetic and hold it for about ten minutes to disolve the carbon and to quench it in oil but what processe do you guys use? i've never used either steels before, thanks a ton.
 
Both 52100 and W2 are going to be hypereutictic steel, that is the steel in the austinetic phase is going to be super saturated with carbon-over 77 points. Both should not be heated above the Acm point, which would be a bit over 1500 degrees-a dull red. Because ambient light can effect the interpritation of the color, what I do is slowly bring it up to non-magnetic and heat it just a little brighter. You would then want to hold that color for at least ten minutes. You will probably have to heat the blade to maybe just a little above this then remove in from the forge for a few seconds than return it for a few seconds back and forth.

Actually, either steel can be water quenched. But being that my health no longer allows me to drink, I've not worked up the courage to try it. Both would probably quench well in a light oil such as vegetable or peanut oil. Bring the oil up to about 130-140 degrees. If you use water, shutter, it should be a bit hotter, maybe 150 degrees. I would use in interupted quench with water, 3 seconds in, 3 seconds out, in and out until the steel is only slightly hot to the touch then immediately into the tempering oven. When I use 52100, I austemper it at about 145 degrees for three hours in an eletric roaster filled with peanut oil. You might want to hold off on such advanced techniques for now.

Doug
 
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Doug, I have a couple of 52100 (Aldo's) blades profiled and ready to start grinding.
For the HT, I am planning on heating in the forge to non magnetic, then edge quenching in olive oil.
Then oven draw back.
What temp for the oven draw back?
Any words of advice?
 
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If you get to full hardness out of the quench then 400 is a good place to start. With an as quenched hardness of 66-67 then 400 should drop you back to about 60. I don't know what hardness you're looking for but you can start at 400 and work up until you get what you want. Hope this helps.
 
Both 52100 and W2 are going to be hypereutictic steel, that is the steel in the austinetic phase is going to be super saturated with carbon-over 77 points. Both should not be heated above the Acm point, which would be a bit over 1500 degrees-a dull red. Because ambient light can effect the interpritation of the color, what I do is slowly bring it up to non-magnetic and heat it just a little brighter. You would then want to hold that color for at least ten minutes. You will probably have to heat the blade to maybe just a little above this then remove in from the forge for a few seconds than return it for a few seconds back and forth.
Doug


Doug,
Could you be a little more specific with the W-2? Just a little, make that a lot more more detail than a "bit more", I do have a HT kiln, and you can't program a "bit longer" into it. Ok, I always have to be funny for some reason, but seriously, I bought about 9 stick of Aldo's W-2 at BLADE, and the only other W-2 I've done looks beautiful, and cuts pathetically. It's not really as bad as I make it out to be, it's just that I got the edge what I would call perfect<for me>, and it barely shaves, when it should be poppin' hairs, and forget about cutting paper, with a blade as thin as this one it should be cutting ribbons from cigarette paper, this one tears newspaper! It really did turn out nice, but I'm disappointed in the performance, which I know was my error in some part of the HT, here is a pic of it, it is what I called
My EDC, with a Cocobola Handle, and Elk horn bead on the thong, Thank Bro, Rex
R. McClellan EDC (2).jpgR. McClellan EDC.jpg
 
I don't work with W2 and don't have any ITT diagrams on it but let me throw out a couple of ideas where you might try modifiying your proceedure for heat treatment. I will assume that you are doing a soak for about 10 minutes to get maximum carbon into solution in the austinite. Not having a source that gives the Accm point, I wouldn't go over 1550 degrees. W2 is still a shallow harding steel so you might want to try a more agressive quenchant than you're using, maybe water instead of oil. Take your tempering temperature about 25 degrees lower. Pardon me if these are things that you've already tried but you didn't give any information on how you were handling this. You might try shooting Aldo a line to see what he recommends or maybe someone who actually uses W2 will chime in.

Doug
 
i havent tried anything with it yet thats why i'm asking you guys, i got a big fighter thats about ready to heat treat and i think oil would keep it soft enough from shattering when someone deceides to chop with it.
 
Badger, you are better off heat treating any blade to full hardness and then attaining your working hardness by tempering. If you shoot for and get full hardness you get a higher percentage of Martensite which is what you want. Anything else will give a mixture of martensite, pearlite, etc. and the quality of the blade will suffer. So no matter what steel you use always shoot for full hardness out of the quench. Hope this helps and makes sense. Best regards,


Darrin
 
Brine is about a agressive as a quenchants gets but it has less of a problem with a vapor jacket. Be prepared to lose some blades in the quenchant and to be thankful when you don't. Make sure that you don't have any stress risers on the blade. No sharp angles. Relieve the corners at the edge and spine of the blade slightly; you can square them off again on the final grind. No sharp 90 degree corners where the tang meets the shoulder of the blade. Put a good 220 grit finish on the blade.

As Darrin said you need to go to maximum hardness out of the quenchant. You adjust the HRC in the tempering oven. Go a little on the softer side, HRC 56-58, if you are concerned about the blade standing up to heavy chopping, go to 58-60 if it is going to be a slicer. If you don't have a hardness meter, which most of us don't, see if you can find someone who has that data for tempering temperatures. You can also go to ASM International at www.asminternational.org and search their data sheets. You don't have to join and it costs about $20 per item to download it from their site but you will have to open an account.

Even if you have access to a hardness tester you will still need to do performance testing on the blade to see if it wants to do what you want it it do.

Doug
 
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I don't work with W2 and don't have any ITT diagrams on it but let me throw out a couple of ideas where you might try modifiying your proceedure for heat treatment. I will assume that you are doing a soak for about 10 minutes to get maximum carbon into solution in the austinite. Not having a source that gives the Accm point, I wouldn't go over 1550 degrees. W2 is still a shallow harding steel so you might want to try a more agressive quenchant than you're using, maybe water instead of oil. Take your tempering temperature about 25 degrees lower. Pardon me if these are things that you've already tried but you didn't give any information on how you were handling this. You might try shooting Aldo a line to see what he recommends or maybe someone who actually uses W2 will chime in.

Doug

Thanks anyway Doug,
I remembered that Don Hanson had put up his HT receipe for W-2, I'm going to try and find that again, since he is the master of W-2, I know he knows what he's talking about. And he always explains everything in simple terms, my guess for what went wrong with that knife was that I didn't let it soak long enough or my quench wasn't quite fast enough. If I remember correctly I set the temp to 1550, and only alowed it to soak for about 5 minutes, before quenching it in McMaster Carr's quench oil 11 second oil heated with a bar of steel I put in the kiln with the blade. I now have 5 gallons from Maxim, and once I get my shop done, I will be working on a monster Bowie, with HAMON, provided I get the HT correct and can polish it out. I differentially HT all of my knives, most of the time I will shoot for a Hamon, sometimes I just don't go the extra step to make it show, and usually I can still see a faint line.

Still working on getting my shop finished up, we've been in a heat wave since May, and working in the shop has been difficult, to say the least. I'll keep plugging away at it untl I get it all finished, so I can get back to making knives! Thanks Bud, Rex
 
thank goodness i asked you guys first before the heat treat, i thought of trying to asking don but didn't want him to think i was trying to steal his style, though i did get the idea from one of his knifes....:les: any way heres a picture of it so far i didnt oil it and left it out in the shop and the "rust monster" went rampid on it, i'm thinking a curly maple handle and stainless fittings what do you guys think?
 

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Badger, you are better off heat treating any blade to full hardness and then attaining your working hardness by tempering. If you shoot for and get full hardness you get a higher percentage of Martensite which is what you want. Anything else will give a mixture of martensite, pearlite, etc. and the quality of the blade will suffer. So no matter what steel you use always shoot for full hardness out of the quench. Hope this helps and makes sense. Best regards,


Darrin

:thumbup: in fact that deserves a :s11798:



I have overhauled cashenblades.com and tidied up the informational section, so for my input on W-2, or 52100, you can go here, http://www.cashenblades.com/info.html
here
http://www.cashenblades.com/heattreatment.html

or more specifically here: http://www.cashenblades.com/steel/w2.html
and here
http://www.cashenblades.com/steel/52100.html.

The problem with W-2, and probably the reason I-T diagrams are scarce, is that it can have a ridiculously wide range of carbon (from .7 all the way to 1.4) , so you need to know your carbon level for your bar of W2. If it is above .8% you really must keep your hardening temp below 1500F. and if it approaches 1% you need to stay at 1475F or below. Although there is also a rogue W2 out there that has Cr, and changes many of the rules, 1550F tells me a lot about your edge problems Rex, but It gets a little involved and if you want to discuss it more in detail feel free to e-mail me- kevin@cashenblades.com
 
Thanks Kevin,
I may be contacting you, if I can't figure out exactley what the problem was, I feel pretty strongly that it was somewhere in the kiln that I goofed, I'll go back and check Aldo's spec sheets and see what the carbon content is for the W-2 I got from him. So if it is lower in carbon how long should it soak and why? The same question, for if it is higher in carbon, if you wouldn't mind sharing?

BTW, your web site is AWESOME!!!! Dude, I seriously thought you were just a Metalurgist! And here you are a knifemaker, and danged AWESOME one at that! I knew you made knives, I didn't know what they looked like or just how incredible they are!
I've been over your Damascus pages about a dozen times now, and will probably be going back another 2 dozen! I think your approach to Damascus is brilliant! And once I get accustomed to my New Tire Hammer, and know that it has the ability to move thicker steel, like your technique, I'm going to give it a shot! Depending how well I do starting off smaller, and restacking a lot! Once I feel comfortable with my welds, I'll go for it, not untill then. Damascus is exciting, to think I would be attempting Damascus this time last year would have made me break out in a cold sweat! Funny how things change with a little success and lot of hard A$$ work!

My tire hammer is the same design as Clay Spencer's, it has a 50 pound hammer on it, do you think that will be strong enough to make Damascus your way? I know I've thrown a lot of questions at you at once, sorry about that, but inquiring minds want to know~! Thanks Bud, Rex
 
thank goodness i asked you guys first before the heat treat, i thought of trying to asking don but didn't want him to think i was trying to steal his style, though i did get the idea from one of his knifes....:les: any way heres a picture of it so far i didnt oil it and left it out in the shop and the "rust monster" went rampid on it, i'm thinking a curly maple handle and stainless fittings what do you guys think?

Badger,
Stainless fittings and curly maple are a classy combination, hard to beat it. Unless your more into darker woods, then I like African blackwood and Nickel Silver, I love the contast of the darker colors and the brighter silver, it also adds to the depth of the piece when you add a hamon, and part of the blade has that gray patina look from the acid etch. Have you seen Adam DeRosier's chopper handles? Check them out if you haven't, I thought I was onto something when I had come up with something almost identical to his, the reasons for that to happen are many. Mostly because we are limited to only a handful of handle shapes that are both comfortable and attractive and I don't think you have to worry about Don being upset about stealing is style, if he were to get mad with me about it, I think that would make me a happy man! THE ONLY reason he could get seriously upset is if my blade was good enough to look anything like something he would make, and if he thought that, OH YEAH!! Talk about being stoked!!!!! Of course I would apologize, and give him credit for the style, but knife shapes don't really belong to anyone in particular, and copying a great style is a huge form of flattery, that's why you see so many, "Bob Loveless style knives"! In his case he had a completely different approach to a part of the blade that has a function, the Drop Point on his skinning knives. And I guess there are a few other areas where he defined his knives, like in the tapered tangs, the flawless grips, and lets not forget impecable fit and finish. I think if you are trying to make a Don Hanson style knife, the last thing he would do is complain, I think he would be honored! That's my take, simply because he is a seriously NICE GUY!!! A pleasure to talk to in anyway, a true credit to knifemakers everywhere! Thanks for sharing and make sure you post some pics when you get it finished. Rex
 
... Dude, I seriously thought you were just a Metalurgist! And here you are a knifemaker, and danged AWESOME one at that! I knew you made ...

:lol:Heh, heh… that’s funny since it is actually the other way around, I have been making knives for almost 35 years now and have held an ABS Master rating since 1995. Although some may think otherwise, I could never bring myself to teach or hand out the information that I do without years of hands on practical experience.

You have a tire hammer then, I think they are pretty slick, the first time I saw one was when I first taught an ABS course in Haywood NC where they have them, I actually enjoy working with that hammer whenever I teach there. One should be able to handle a 3 to 6 lb billet. Feel free to contact me for anything else I can help with.
 
:lol:Heh, heh… that’s funny since it is actually the other way around, I have been making knives for almost 35 years now and have held an ABS Master rating since 1995. Although some may think otherwise, I could never bring myself to teach or hand out the information that I do without years of hands on practical experience.

You have a tire hammer then, I think they are pretty slick, the first time I saw one was when I first taught an ABS course in Haywood NC where they have them, I actually enjoy working with that hammer whenever I teach there. One should be able to handle a 3 to 6 lb billet. Feel free to contact me for anything else I can help with.



Kevin,
The main reason I didn't know was because I have never heard you mention anything about your knives, or even seen one posted, I do remember you talking about your salt pots, so that should have been a freakin clue! And since you said it, I remember seeing somewhere that you are a MasterSmith! That is so awesome.

I went back to your website and it looks great! I would like to see more knives though! And the Heat Treat section is great, it explains so much, in terms I can understand....to a degree...

Yeah, my Tire hammer is pretty sweet, I had to think on it a long time, but when I had the cash to do it, and I weighed my options and total costs with everything, this was an easy choice. A decent 25 lb Little Giant will run around 2K to 3500, + the shipping or the cost of going and picking it up, PROVIDED it is on my side of the planet! Most I found, after figuring expenses, would have cost me closer to 5K total price, when this Tire Hammer, built by John Wayne Taylor, is in the next county, costs 2500.00(brand new, BTW) and 30 bucks worth of gas, another $100 to hire a guy with a tractor, and it is in place at it's forever home! I haven't had the chance to use it yet, but I should be banging this weekend, after I finish up several long running projects.

Speaking of which, my shop is just about ready, my new forge that I built, is just about done, all my new benches are done, I had a few fixtures I wanted to build but they will have to wait, I haven't made a knife since I had my heart attack back in March! So I'm jonesing for some hot steel! I think my first trick wil be to make a knife out of some of the W-2 I got from Aldo, I'm feeling a big MONSTER chopper coming my way!!! You know for research....testing, that kinda stuff! And protection from giant, man eating, WOOLY BOOGERS!!!!! There could be some, best to be prepared!!! Thanks Kevin, when I get into my next W-2 blade, I'll be contacting you to make sure I don't make any more mistakes like the last one, Thanks For EVERYTHING!!! Rex
 
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