5160 heat treating help

Jim Coffee

Well-Known Member
I want to try my new kiln out and was told 5160 would be a good steel to start out with. Can someone give me the heat treating steps to do the 5160, The heat treating is all new to me I have always sent my blades out for heat treating so please make this simple:biggrin: Thanks Jim
 
OK, simple recipe:

Normalise 2 times at 1600 degrees. (cool to black heat)
Dunk it in oil at 1550 degrees.
Temper at 350-425 degrees twice for 1-2 hours.(use the higher numbers for thicker blades)

The first 2 steps go fairly quickly if you are using a forge. If stock removal, I'd still do it....it can't hurt for grain refinement. This is my simple recipe but you can experiment and even do a cryo like Ed Caffrey.


Good luck,
Rudy
 
Here's how I would handle it for 5160:

1. grind to at least a 120 grit finish, leaving the edge at least .040" thick (generally the thicker you leave the edge, the less warpage occurs)
2. Heat the blade to 1550F (NO SOAK)
3. Quench in light oil (lots of choices here)
4. Allow the blade to cool down IN the oil, while your tempering oven is pre-heating
5. Temper at 350F for two hours. (I do a total of three tempering cycles, allowing the blade to cool to room temp between cycles.

I add a couple more steps in what I do.....I thermal cycle the blade 3x prior to hardening. During the third thermal cycle is when I stamp my blades.
 
Ed,
Sorry for what might be a silly question BUT

By thermal cycling do you mean your bringing them up all the way to non magnetic and then bringing them down? or are you going for a grain reducing thingy by going to about 1100 degrees and bring down to a black heat??
 
Last edited:
Hi Dave!

The latter.....going to no more than 1300F, then allowing to cool to "black" (800-900F). This not only works on the grain refinement, but over time I've realized that it's also a stress relieving operation....which lessens the chances of warping.
 
Ed, when thermal cycling, do you use the same temp. for all 3 cycles? Or is temp. really not critical as long as its between 1100 & 1300? I've heard of some people increasing the temp slightly each time and some people slightly decreasing the temp. each time. Just wondering how you do it and why? Thanks in advance for your answer.

Darrin
 
Hi Darrin!

I've tried it both ways, and can't see any difference. I got really curious about it and sent some done each way off for testing......the spectrographing showed no difference between blades done at a single temp 3X, versus those that were done at either rising or falling temps. The key seems to be the temp range......1100 to 1350F, AND allowing the blade to cool BELOW 900F.

Ya know, this gets me to thinking.... looking back, it's almost comical how I used to make assumptions about a lot of things dealing with heating/cooling, and how my perceptions changed so much, once I started having things tested.....it really rocked my world and taught me just how much I didn't know! :)
 
Thats very interesting Ed and also good to know. Thats great that you performed the test and shared the results. Now I can thermal cycle and not be so picky about it. Thanks again,

Darrin
 
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