Forging temp. Question

D.Douglas

D.Douglas

Well-Known Member
I recently was at a hammer-in where Mark Aspery was demoing. He briefly touched on forging tool and high carbon steels. It was brought up about knowing the write temps for forging these steels. Optical pyrometer was brought up by another gentleman. Has anybody used one of these? I am sure it cost more than a magnet. Pretty amazing what Mark can do with some hot iron!
 
Optical pyrometers can run into the thousands, take two hands to operate, so you'd need an assistant scoping the hot iron while you hold it for them.

Mark is correct, most of the knife steels, even the simple ones can give you troubles if you try to work them too hot or too cold. Once you have a good idea of the right temperatures for the steel you're using, your eye will start to train to the right colors. Make sure you use similar lighting each time. It's one of the reasons that smithy's were kind of dark. Forging outside in bright sunlight is a risky proposition.

In the end, learn the steel you have, it will talk to you if you're paying attention.
 
Mike , Thank you. Now i understand why they are out of most blade smiths arsenal. Probably used in industrial type settings. Thanks again for your advise. Doug
 
I've been using an industrial IR thermometer that goes up to 2250° F. It has one handed operation, and it can dynamically update fairly quickly. It also has an emissivity adjustment.

Mainly I've been using it to gauge temperatures while interrupt quenching. I also used it to find out why I'm not going to use my kitchen oven for tempering (an oven set at 400° F for 30 minutes had temperature variation from 375° F to 600° F).
 
Gabe, one of the things that you can do to counter the swings in temperature in the oven as the heat coils turn on and off is to bury the blade in a cake pan full of sand. It serves as a thermal mass that will hold a more constant temp as the oven cycles.

Doug Lester
 
That's a good point, Doug. Even though the problem I was seeing was hot spots based on location and not based on time, it would still address the problem.
 
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