Carbon stock removal blades, annealing and normalizing??

Lerch

Well-Known Member
After trying to figure out he best way to word this question i decided just to lay out the order in which i work 1095 steel

Cut blades from bar stock on band saw
Profile blades on 36grit belt
drill pin or corby bolt holes and hollow out tang
do profile grinds leaving cutting edge roughly .070"-.100" thick
(below is the part in question)
Anneal blades by placing in Evenheat oven and ramping to temp of 1450deg with no hold time and allowing the blades to cool in the oven overnight
Normalize the blades by heating to 1470deg (no hold time) and cooling to black heat in still air, then the same at temps of 1450deg and 1425deg
Cool to hand temp, coat in satanite clay, heat to 1470deg for 5 min soak and quench in Parks 50 quench oil.


My question is if my process with the annealing and then normalizing is correct or if i should i change anything up? My thinking was to take the steel back to a relaxed state with the annealing process and then reduce grain size with the 3 normalizing procedures. I have been pretty happy with the results and temp selection so far but if any one thinks differently i would love to hear your recomendations. and also knowing that temps will differ with other steel (52100 i am working with now) would you change any order??

thanks
steve
 
I would suggest eliminating the long anneal, and just do a spheroidizing anneal before sawing and drilling, ect. 2 or 3 heats at around 1350°. This will make cutting and drilling easier on your bits and blades. Then proceed. I don't see a need for the clay, unless you are shooting for a hamon.
 
thanks for the info, I am using the clay for differential hardening. while im sure it is functional i am doing it mostly for asthetic value on the hamon.

all info is appreciated

thanks
steve
 
I would go with eliminating the annealing step too. Your stock should be coming to you annealed or at least spherodized. Whether or not you need to soak the steel any longer than it takes to heat the blade through for austinizing prior to quenching will depend on the alloy used. Hypoeutectic and eutectic steels, less than 77 points carbon and approximately 77 points carbon, don't need any more time than what it takes to heat the steel throughout. You can also heat the steel to just above the upper critical limit for that alloy. Hypereutectic steel, more than 77 points carbon need to be soaked. Your lower alloy tool steels need to be soaked at between upper and lower critical temperatures to avoid grain growth and may need to be held at temperature for 5-10 minutes. More complex steels with tungsten and vanadium might need to be soaked at well above that to get the carbides to release the carbon into solution in the austinite. This is where you need to check the data sheets.

Some people use a thin wash of Satanite to prevent scale. If you want to do a hamon or quench line then you also need to be using a simpler steel with a hypoeutectic steel giving stronger results than a eutectic or hypereutectic steel. The 52100 that you are now using is too deep hardening to show a hamon or quench line with clay quenching. You can do a differential hardening by edge quenching but don't expect to see much of quench line with etching. All the ferrite that forms on normal cooling will be in the pearlite and the bands of ferrite in the pearlite will be thin. Also Parks #50 is a little faster than is needed for 52100, though quenching in water is listed on the data sheet that I have for it. It's just not necessary to use something that fast.

The temperature and soak time for austinizing the 52100 prior to quenching looks about right.

Doug
 
His question was in regards to 1095 that he was going to order as I understood it.
 
Yes my question is more about 1095 steel that i am already using and if my current methods were good or if there was anything i could be doing better. I also have some 52100 that i am getting ready to work with so i was curious about that as well

thanks
steve
 
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