Heat treating 316 with an HSS edge?

52 Ford

Well-Known Member
Made a meat cleaver out of 316 stainless. Turned out nice. I welded a section of HSS to the body to make the cutting edge. Had a slight warp from welding, put it in the forge, flattened it on the anvil, quinched it... huge warp. I tried a couple times with varying degrees of warpage. Going to cut my weld and put on a different piece of HSS and spread my welds out more. Hopefully I wont warp it to shit this time. (1/8" of "cup" along the edge over about 6 inches)

The question: what if I clamp it between two pieces of thick steel when it comes out the forge - THEN quench the whole assembly. Any advice would be appreciated.

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you could clamp it and quench it, or quench, interrupt and clamp... so how hot did you get the hss in the forge, and why hss on a cleaver, or is it a thin cleaver?
 
you could clamp it and quench it, or quench, interrupt and clamp... so how hot did you get the hss in the forge, and why hss on a cleaver, or is it a thin cleaver?
HSS just because I had a conveniently sized piece. Not thin at all. It was a knife from a big planer at a sawmill. Haven't measured it, but it's over 1/8" thick (maybe .030 over?) and the stainless is right on 1/8". Wasn't paying close enough attention and let it sit in the fire too long, maybe 10 seconds too long. So pretty hot.

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Was this HSS forge welded to the 316SS? I'd love to see how you joined those two together. Or Tig/Mig/Stick welded to edge? Either way should work, a good butt weld ground smooth should just disappear.
 
Was this HSS forge welded to the 316SS? I'd love to see how you joined those two together. Or Tig/Mig/Stick welded to edge? Either way should work, a good butt weld ground smooth should just disappear.
312SS stick electrode. Gotta get my shielding gas refilled, plus I just like stick welding. Thought about trying to forge weld it just for fun, but that just seemed like a lot of extra work to get to the same end result.

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Stick welding done properly is darn strong. I recently got a flux cored wire mig welder and am starting to like that for small jobs. I do think for heavy welds I'd still drag out the leads for the stick welder.

Perhaps to reduce warping you might soak the cleaver for a few minutes in the forge, slow cool to help remove stresses induced during welding. I would for sure clamp between plates, perhaps even before heating for quench? That will take longer to soak, and I'd expect the cleaver would need to be wrapped in SS foil to prevent scale build up.

Is this M42 HSS? If so, here's good info: http://sb-specialty-metals.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/M42-NF.pdf
 
I'd say the warping is mostly the product of putting 3 different metals together. There is nothing similar about them. The 316 will get squirrelly just from heating and cooling it.
 
I'd say the warping is mostly the product of putting 3 different metals together. There is nothing similar about them. The 316 will get squirrelly just from heating and cooling it.
I knew the 316 was going to try to warp, but I'm surprised at how bad the HSS wanted to warp. Haven't had time to try again. Hopefully I'll get to it Monday or Tuesday.

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