Forging D2

W

W Stelter

Joined
Feb 29, 2016
Messages
33
Hey guys, I was recently given a nice chunk of 1" D2 round stock, and I figured it would be great for forging some integrals, however I know that D2 is an air hardening steel and I don't want to jump into this and be forging along until the blade hardens and I shatter or crack it. Any tips on forging and heat treating D2? I'm thinking probably just keeping the steel nice and hot will do the trick, but I want to be careful. Please let me know what you guys think!
thanks,
-Will Stelter
 
What's you experance with forging? Forging air hardening steels can be done but it's tricky. But not becaus of why you think. These steels can be quite red short meaning thy will crack and crumble if worked to hot or to cold. So you need to have tight control of your heating.
 
Pre-heat evenly and forge between 2000F and 1700F ... no hotter - no cooler. It is best to try and stay between 1900F and 1700F.
 
I have a fair amount of forging experience, I've done a good bit of it in the past couple months. Ive got a Lisch forge, which seems to be pretty consistent in its heating and temperature control. Sounds like I just need to take short heats and not let it overheat. Also, for heat treating, how to you do your pricing? is it by blade or by size?
thanks,
-Will
 
thanks Stacy, Ill try to keep it in that temp range, doesn't sound like it'll be too hard, mostly just taking shorter heats on it and keeping an eye on it in the forge. Any advice on normalizing and softening it after forging? I'm guessing letting it cool down with the forge might work, but Im not totally sure.
thanks,
-Will
 
What up Will, good to see you here on the forums.
It is my estimation that you will need to have a digital furnace to soften that stuff enough to drill, after forging. You might try some sub-critical thermal cycles, but I doubt that will work very well.
 
Every air hardening steel require full anneal after forging. Make sure you have properly equipment to do that.
 
I anealed some D2 a little while ago and it took something like 14-18hrs to do it.
 
Thanks Salem, the amount of information on here is insane... yeah i looks like i might need to send it out for annealing if I manage to not ruin it during forging, if only there was someone around here who did heat treating, and perhaps supplied a steel similar to L6...
 
:eek::foot::D
I'm planning on doing another batch of D2 and would be happy to aneal your blade with my D2 bar stock. We could try foil wrapping your blade but I'm not sure how the foil will hold up to that length of time. Maybe a double pouch would do it. I don't foil wrap the D2 bars I aneal and it's honestly not to bad. Thy come out of the oven butter soft and easy to drill and even thread.
 
I use the annealing that crucible has listed for D2
Annealing
A. Heat to 1600F(870C), hold 2 hours, cool slowly (25F(15C)/hr maximum) to 1000F(540C), then air cool.
Click to expand...

This process actually takes about 30hrs start to finish. My first batch I did 40° per hr and it worked fine.
 
Hey Will. Welcome to the forum! The other issue I have found after playing around a little with forging D2 is that it is stubborn as hell under the hammer. Way worse than even 52100. You really got to go at it.
 
You should try forging CPM3v, I retired it once, ONCE.
 
Not sure just yet but I can do it any time as I have an entire huge stack of D2 that needs it. When you forging your blade?
 
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