Help with D2

nowa90

Member
I planned on just heating it until non magnetic, then quenching in oil. Temper for 1 hour at 205 then dry in closed oven, then repeat at 195, but someone said D2 is a more complex metal and needs another procedure, involving annealing, normalising, and then quenching it. What do you guys think of the matter? I'll have a propane torch and some veggy/motor oil and a oven to do my heat treat.
 
In case you didn't pick it up from Mike's link, D2 is an air quenching steel. You might get by with an oil quench but you would also be pushing your luck and there's a good chance that you would end up with a broken blade. So you will have to send it out for heat treatment, as Dave suggested, or find another steel to make blades from. You might want to look up properties of blade steels, you can find the information from searching this site, before getting more steel to use.

Doug
 
It's my first blades, so I may just do it with a torch, and if it breaks it breaks. I just ordered some 1080+ and another bar of D2 last night, so the worst case scenario is I crack the blade and get some experience, right?
 
If that's the way that you want to look at it but D2 is not a candidate for such treatment. It really does need special handling. If you want to try to hold it at temperature for austinization for at least 10 minutes. The color should be an orange/yellow to get it hot enough to get the carbides to release their carbon into solution. Allow to air cool afterward; don't try to oil quench. A tempering temperature of 450-475° may give you a workable hardness. D2 is one of the steels that also has a secondary hardening node that will give better carbide formation but you can't reach that with a kitchen or toaster oven. Personally, I think that you will be wasting some expensive steel to try it heat treat it yourself but it's your money.

Doug
 
It's my first blades, so I may just do it with a torch, and if it breaks it breaks. I just ordered some 1080+ and another bar of D2 last night, so the worst case scenario is I crack the blade and get some experience, right?

No, the worst case scenario is that a blade you made fails when it is needed. You're right though about experience. It is a good thing - and there's lots of it on this forum.
 
It's going to be a long expensive learning curve if you won't take advice from the people that know what they're talking about.
 
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