52100 vs W2

bronyblacksmith said:
Hey Don. I read one of your posts about not all w2 being equal. is the huge w2 round stock that you sold years ago as what you currently use?
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Yes, the huge round stock is what I'm still using.
Marko3 said:
Alright then. So for the W-2 short soak or should I say no soak is getting those numbers out of the quench. That is impressive if you ask me. I have a blade about ready to go so I am looking forward to seeing what I can get out of this.
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I now do a 3 minute soak when I use the electric oven, but no soak in the forge.
 
Don Hanson III said:
Yes, the huge round stock is what I'm still using.

I now do a 3 minute soak when I use the electric oven, but no soak in the forge.
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Hi Don... I am using a electric oven but I do have a forge but for the sake of knowing what temp I am using I will use the oven. I just want to have this clear in my head so the oven is at temp.. Knife in oven and just go three minutes lets say four and quench. Or does the three minutes start when you think your blade is at temp. My apologies if this has been answered but blade I am using is special to me and I want it to come out well. If it matters my blade was forged and I did run it through a cycle in the forge just estimating temps as I stepped down.

Thanks !
 
Don,

Do you put your blades in a cold oven and let them come up to temp with the oven or do you place them in after the oven reaches target temp?
 
Marko3 said:
Hi Don... I am using a electric oven but I do have a forge but for the sake of knowing what temp I am using I will use the oven. I just want to have this clear in my head so the oven is at temp.. Knife in oven and just go three minutes lets say four and quench. Or does the three minutes start when you think your blade is at temp. My apologies if this has been answered but blade I am using is special to me and I want it to come out well. If it matters my blade was forged and I did run it through a cycle in the forge just estimating temps as I stepped down.

Thanks !
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i4Marc said:
Don,

Do you put your blades in a cold oven and let them come up to temp with the oven or do you place them in after the oven reaches target temp?
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Blade goes into the oven after it reaches 1450f. Then a three minute soak after oven comes back up to 1450f.
 
Don, can you PM me your address, I am getting REALLY high readings with this W2. At 1470, there is more variation across the coupon, but some spots are reading 70.5, with lows of Rc66, with an average of Rc69. I will send you a piece and I would like to see of you can duplicate what I have seen. My W1 is still averaging Rc66 at 1470f. Just for information sake, I am using brine to quench to get the max I can get in quench. My W1 seems to like 1460 to 1470. I will try 1480 with the W2, and see how that goes.
 
I went to 1480f, and the hardness dropped to Rc64 on average. My W1 was really inconsistent with parts that didn't harden, and others that were Rc64.

Stuart, that 70.5 was mixed with areas of Rc66. At 1460, there was a lot less variation. I have a theory as to what is happening, but will do some reading first to see if the theory is correct. I will e-mail Kevin Cashen on this to see what he thinks. BTW, I checked the callibration on the tester and it was still good, so the tester is OK.
 
Willie71 said:
Don, can you PM me your address, I am getting REALLY high readings with this W2. At 1470, there is more variation across the coupon, but some spots are reading 70.5, with lows of Rc66, with an average of Rc69. I will send you a piece and I would like to see of you can duplicate what I have seen. My W1 is still averaging Rc66 at 1470f. Just for information sake, I am using brine to quench to get the max I can get in quench. My W1 seems to like 1460 to 1470. I will try 1480 with the W2, and see how that goes.
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I've never heard of steel getting that hard?

1450 is the sweet spot for my W2, raise or lower temp and Rc goes down.

Po Box 13 Success, Mo 65570
 
Don Hanson III said:
I've never heard of steel getting that hard?

1450 is the sweet spot for my W2, raise or lower temp and Rc goes down.

Po Box 13 Success, Mo 65570
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Me neither. I am wondering if I am getting outside the range of my tester in terms of accuracy. Like I said it was inconsistent, but I'll send you a few pieces. My kiln might be out by 10f from your setup, so I'll chalk the higher 1460f temp to thermocouple variance for now, but I will reference that number in my shop.
 
I'm reading with super interest this thread!!!
one question: how, and how frequently do you suggest to calibrate the thermocouples? i ask because the temperature differences beetwen 1450 and 1460/70 is very narrow.
Probably Willie's guess it's right and two different shops/setups repeatability may relay the most on precision vs absolute accuracy.
That's the main reason i really love to have access to a sound hardness reader.
 
chavez556 said:
I get my 52100 (aldo and alpha) heat treated by bos. They run all of their blades through cryo treatment.

I have not tested it against non cryo treated 52100, but the 52100 kitchen slicers I have made have always had incredible edge retention.

Btw I have paul run them to 61rc. And I grind post ht.

Nick
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Interesting. Does Bos do oil hardening steel now? That would get some interest for sure.
 
Willie, I was wondering if it is possible at all (I have no idea...never used a tester before), that the 70.5 reading was dead on top of a carbide....Cr or V, while the 66 was dead on top of the matrix? Just a theory.
 
samuraistuart said:
Willie, I was wondering if it is possible at all (I have no idea...never used a tester before), that the 70.5 reading was dead on top of a carbide....Cr or V, while the 66 was dead on top of the matrix? Just a theory.
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This is my theory. I think more carbon than 0.85% went into solution at 1470f, some went into larger carbides, and some ended up in grain boundaries resulting in the inconsistent readings. I would need to do micrographs to verify this, and have no way of accomplishing this yet. (Maybe next year if the budget works out.) In my shop I will be using 1460 in my kiln for W2, as that seems to be the sweet spot.
 
I repeated my 1470f austentize. I used the same normalizing program in the evenheat as the previous run, and without tempering, the numbers I got were:

64, 65, 66, 67, 62 low, 63, 66, 67, 68, 66, 66, 69 high, 66, 67, 66, 66, 68, 67.

I was unable to duplicate the 70.5 high on the previous test, so I will chalk it up to tester error. So, in my shop, with my equipment, 1460f is the sweet spot, and overall hardness and consistency goes down in as little as 10f up or down from there.
 
Willie71 said:
I repeated my 1470f austentize. I used the same normalizing program in the evenheat as the previous run, and without tempering, the numbers I got were:

64, 65, 66, 67, 62 low, 63, 66, 67, 68, 66, 66, 69 high, 66, 67, 66, 66, 68, 67.

I was unable to duplicate the 70.5 high on the previous test, so I will chalk it up to tester error. So, in my shop, with my equipment, 1460f is the sweet spot, and overall hardness and consistency goes down in as little as 10f up or down from there.
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Interesting, the W2 I've tested in my old Wilson tester does not vary more than a couple points, usually less. 67 to 68.5.
 
Don Hanson III said:
Interesting, the W2 I've tested in my old Wilson tester does not vary more than a couple points, usually less. 67 to 68.5.
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When I used 1460f, the numbers were consistent. At 1470, they started to vary, and at 1480, they varied and went down.
 
I don't know if this post consider a follow-up or my usual out-of-the-box tinkering weekend. I cut & ht-ed 4 KSO.

Aldo/NJSB 52100 1.5 x 3/32" thick
Knife0; K1 - 4.5" hunter

Aldo/NJSB W2 1.5 x 1/8 thick
K2; K3 - 4.5" hunter

K0 superquench 52100 - HRC: At quenched & PC (post cryo) 66, after 325F tempered 61
K1 Park50 quenched 52100 - HRC: PC 66, 325F 63
K2 Park50 quenched W2 - HRC: PC 64, 325F 63
K3 superquench W2 - HRC: PC 66, 325F 62

I was a bit hurry when grinding off decarb post cryo, so there were a bit left over therefore PC HRC reading are on the low side, of which I grinded again after 2 x 90 minutes@325F tempered. HRC reading are at least triple sample points in tang & blade.

Will see how W2 blades perform this time around in my cardboard cutting tests. HRC @325F is about 1 point lower than my calculation, however these #s could be confusing for those expect a near snap-temper situation.

Edit #1 7/28: I cut cardboard for about an hour using Knife#3 - Superquenched W2, its edge started to snag in 3 places when slicing newsprint. Estimated linear cut feet about 700. With a little clean up and strop on cardboard, I expect this edge linear cut could reach 1000 ft. This is 20x better than my previous attempt with W2 knives.

Edit#2 7/29: I cut cardboard for about an hour using Knife#2 - W2 quenched in Park50, its edge started to snag in 2 places when slicing newsprint. Estimated linear cut feet about 900. With a little clean up and strop on cardboard, I expect this edge linear cut could reach 1300 ft. This is 26x better than my previous attempt with W2 knives.
 
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Any updates?

Is this that blade?

[video=youtube;X0jh0zPz7ao]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0jh0zPz7ao&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
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