Heat color chart

[JoeBusic]

There are charts all over the place and there are huge differences in color. I need a master to link a chart that is the closest to truth. Colors of interest are in the stainless steel region.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

You are correct that the charts vary a lot. There is a reason.
Forging and high temp heat color charts are very inaccurate. Different people see heat colors differently. My cherry red may look orange to you, etc. Few people see the lower red colors shown on the charts. Most people will guess the colors as much as 200°C off.
Temper color charts are a little better, but they also take some skill in doing the temper to read the color correctly.

Bet advice I can offer would be to have an accurate HT oven available and heat a bar of steel to 870°C. Print out a couple charts you found online and compare the bar to charts. Do this on a very cloudy day, in the shade, or even better, at night. Pick the chart that looks the closest to your eyes. That will give you an idea of what color is what temperature. Heat the bar to 980°C and 1090°C and compare to see if it still is useful.

 

[DevinT]

Are we talking tempering temperatures or forging temperatures?

Hoss

 

[JoeBusic]

Are we talking tempering temperatures or forging temperatures?

Hoss

Forging. Mostly interested in yellow nuances.

 

[DevinT]

Forging. Mostly interested in yellow nuances.

You shouldn’t be forging high alloy steels in the yellow range, only in the orange or bright red ranges. 2150’f max.

Hoss

 

[JoeBusic]

You shouldn’t be forging high alloy steels in the yellow range, only in the orange or bright red ranges. 2150’f max.

Hoss

I'm not forging. Testing some weird stuff and need to write down the temps. If it's so subjective, maybe a precise IR meter is a better solution. Costly for now.
That said. In your opinion, what would be the difference from light yellow thru yellowish white to first pure white? My color saturation vision is above average.