Blade Finish ( Acetone )

[jetedge]

I recently stuck my ( SOG ) Jetedge ( J48 ) into a tree. The blade is ATS-34 Steel & to my knowledge it has a higher Carbon content which makes it a little more vulnrable to erosion. I may not be correct about that but that is what I know. It had stain from the sap in the tree.
I used Acetone to clean alot of the top serface stain off & used Blue Magic and buffed the rest out. I am wondering weather or not the blade will be affected from contact with the Acetone.. Any help I can get on this is greatly appreciated.??

 

[leroys_45]

First off, I want to help you with your terminology. Knives and metals generally CORRODE rather than ERODE. I highly doubt that acetone would affect your blade at all. Acetone makes for a great cleaner and would doubtless affect the steel though I'd keep it off various handle materials such as G-10, Micarta and Zytel. I don't know if it would do anything, but I wouldn't want to find out on one of my knives.

And a quick welcome here. I'm sure you'll find that ALL your knife questions will be answered and remember to use the search feature. Lots of your questions have probably been covered already.

 

[jeegeet]

I was once cleaning my SOCOM with acetone.
Accidentally I got some of it on the handle. It got discolored a little. But whatever it was it didn't penetrate too deep. After some time of wearing the discoloration went away.

Kris

 

[Walt Welch]

I believe Leroys_45 meant to say that acetone would doubtless NOT affect the steel.

The carbon content does not necessarily affect the corrosion resistance of the alloy significantly. What counts is the free Cr, which will protect from corrosion. Cr is generally bound by C, which forms the somewhat soft Cr carbides. Other elements, notably vanadium and tungsten will also form carbides, thus freeing up more free chrome.

However, the carbon content of ATS-34 is just over 1%, which is not considered high in this day and age of CPM steels, some of which have over 2% carbon. Add to this that ATS-34 has no other carbide former other than Cr, and you have plenty of free Cr to resist corrosion, since the 14.5% of Cr in ATS-34 is a level that is quite high.

Hope this helps, and welcome. Walt

 

[leroys_45]

Well, you caught me Walt. I didn't say what I was thinking, the acetone will NOT affect the steel.

Well, now everyone knows I'm stupid. Would've only been a matter of time till you all found out anyway.

 

Beware of "stobor", as R.A. Heinlein once said. Carbon and chromium in steel tend to be "stobors".
If you austenitize & quench ATS-34 correctly, there will be "no" chromium carbide in the steel, "all" chromium beeing dissolved in the matrix, making it "stainless". And very hard, because of martensite builtup by quenching.
If you temper "low" (for knives) hardness will (almost) stay and the steel remain "stainless".
If you temper "high", chromium carbides will form, the steel becomes much tougher but a bit less hard (some secondary hardening, though) and will no longer be "much stainless".
The 1% carbon level of ATS-34 is high enough to bind all 14% chromium if you temper high, forming Cr23 C6.
When austenitizing, the chromium carbides are broken up, the carbon is free to go to solution, "ready to form" Martensite (again).
Do not forget, ATS-34 is a HSS-type steel, it can be tempered "red-hard", if required!


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D.T. UTZINGER

[This message has been edited by ZUT&ZUT (edited 04-08-2000).]