Aldo 1084 heat treat -longer soak?

ScottRoush

ScottRoush

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Jan 10, 2010
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So it's been lurking in the back of my head and then the thought surfaced completely through something I heard from another smith. Compared to the other 1080s, with Aldo's 1084 and it's higher alloy content, should it receive a longer soak at critical to get the most out of this steel?
 
Scott, just get it up to temp and equalize. You won't have any problems. Great steel. :thumbup:

- Mitch
 
I give it a 15 minute soak to make sure everything is uniform, you are not solutioning the Vanadium, you are leaving that intentionally to pin grain boundaries, and I'm pretty sure the Manganese is all in quickly once the carbon goes so you're pretty good once you hit decoalescence. Extra time won't hurt you, just don't solution your Vanadium by overheating.

-Page
 
sunshadow said:
I give it a 15 minute soak to make sure everything is uniform, you are not solutioning the Vanadium, you are leaving that intentionally to pin grain boundaries, and I'm pretty sure the Manganese is all in quickly once the carbon goes so you're pretty good once you hit decoalescence. Extra time won't hurt you, just don't solution your Vanadium by overheating.

-Page
Click to expand...

Page, a 15 minute soak! What are ya working with O-1 still??? :D
(Just kidding around)

- Mitch
 
Aldo's 1084 does not have enough higher alloy to require a soak time. Just a tiny bit of vanadium for grain refinement.
Great steel though!
 
thanks a lot.

While we are discussing vanadium and 1084, can somebody tell me a little bit about how the vanadium improves the quality of this steel? I hear things like 'grain refinement' and 'preventing excess grain growth'... but to what extent is this happening? I mean can somebody totally blow a heat treat by overheating before the quench and still have a good working blade??
 
Scott,
Two different things here.
1) The vanadium makes for finer grain and slows down the merging of grains by " blocking" the boundaries. This prevents two smaller grains merging and becoming bigger...and merging again...tec. until the grains are huge. If the temps are kept around 1500F, you will have nice small grains. If you heat it up too hot, the vanadium goes into solution and then it isn't blocking the boundaries anymore. The grain growth will explode and give you bricks instead of sand.
2) Can you blow the HT by overheating and get a good knife....No... but many who do claim the knife is good. Once the grains grow, the only way to get them small again is to refine them by normalizing the steel and returning the grain size to small grains again, then re-doing the HT. The vanadium won't prevent overgrowth by overheating. It will keep things small during longer soak time if the temp is right.
 
Okay.... great. I was under the wrong assumption then. I was thinking that the vanadium kept the grain from enlarging when overheated.... etc. Es claro.
 
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