Another Heat Treat Question...

[scott.livesey]

good to hear. i think if you found some steel square tube and made a place for your blade to sit, you may have better heat control inside your forge.

 

[KenH]

I've read this as well as I've been trying to determine if I need to normalize Alpha 1084. I didn't and it worked out fine...

Per Chuck of Alpha their steel is spec'd to be in a state ready for HT and should NOT need any steps before HT. From AKS website:

"This alloy been properly annealed and is in the soft condition. You do not have to do any non-standard wasteful processes before heat treating. The steel must be heat treated to get to a hardened state. Follow the heat treat recipe and the steel will get hard."

 

[LRB]

Thanks, I do have an RC Tester. I just completed one knife this afternoon and it tested 62HRC.

I brought my forge up to 1490 and stabilized it pretty well. I do have a high temp sensor in the forge, but it does fluctuate a bit and some parts of the forge look hotter than others. I make sure to move the blade around inside the forge to try and keep uniform heat and color in the steel.

I did the heat treat in the garage so I could judge the color of the steel.

I quenched in 190 degree canola oil. Cleaned the oil off and put it in my regular oven at 400 for 1:30 minutes. Then I plate cooled it in aluminum plates for 10 minutes.

I'll try and work on some coupons tomorrow and try a few different things.

Why would you quench at 190°? Your quenchant should not go above 140° unless you are working towards marquenching