between forgings

[ScottRoush]

If you are working something at forging temps, should you normalize before taking a long break... i.e. 12 hours or so???

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

No need. The next time you bring it up to 1500F the dance starts all over again. When done with the forging work, and ready to move on to grinding, that is a good time to normalize, followed by a sub-critical annealing. Prior to HT I always normalize again.
Stacy

 

[silver_pilate]

This is coming from my very limited forging knowledge, but I would think it would be redundant. The more heats you have, the more chances you have of messing things up. When you bring your steel back up for your next forging heat, whatever normalizing you did would be undone anyway. I say forge until you're finished, and then worry about normalizing, thermal cycling, and a sub-critical anneal.

edit: Dope! Stacy beat me to it.

--nathan

 

[ScottRoush]

thanks fellas... that is what i thought. I like forging. Yesterday was my first real day... and it was a blast. Forged some tongs out of rebar. And twisted a railroad spike.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

STOP NOW, WHILE THERE IS STILL TIME !!!!

It is an addiction that will destroy you.

Seriously, forging is more fun than sex.....OK, maybe not more fun, but it is still a lot of fun. ( Actually, at my age, it is more fun than sex....and I can do it a lot longer.)

Stacy

 

[SteelSlaver]

Stacy, Viagra is like adding a blower to your forge, or so I have heard.

 

[Kevin R. Cashen]

If you are working something at forging temps, should you normalize before taking a long break... i.e. 12 hours or so???

With shallow hardening steels (W1, W2 1075, 1080, 1084, 1095 etc..) don't sweat it, go in for the night and get some rest. Even with some deeper hardening stuff like 52100, 5160 and others it is not really a problem. With the really deep hardening stuff like say O-1 or L6, and definitely the air hardening steels... yep, it would probably be a good idea to refine the grain and stress relieve or anneal in some way before walking away. I work with O1/L6 damascus almost exclusively and the secret to this stuff is to either take it from first weld all the way to normalized knife or step the billet down to refine the grain and avoid any hardening before calling it quits for the night. Failure to do so can come back to haunt you later on with these very deep hardening steels.

 

[Will52100]

Realy depends on the steel, I work mostly 52100 and like to give a good normalizing before shutting down for the night. Does it help, maybe, does it hurt, I wouldn't think so. Since I started doing this I haven't had a blade crack yet, though I've never had many crack with this steel.

 

[ScottRoush]

Thanks a lot fellas. I haven't tried forging viagra yet. I will stick with my shallow 1084 and get some rest for awhile....