Heat treat charts?

J

John L

Joined
Oct 28, 2004
Messages
1,330
Does anyone know where I might find heat treat charts for most of the commonly used steels. I need temps all the way down to RC 49 or so as I make folders and need this RC for springs. What is the name of the graph or chart that shows this? Thanks.
 
Keith: Yes..that is the type I need...but what is it?...can't tell from the pic.
 
shadowknives said:
http://www.evenheat-kiln.com/techni...tainless-Plus Damascus Heat Treat Procedure:+

that one's pretty accurate.
Click to expand...

I disagree. Evenheat describes ATS34 and 154CM as requiring oil quenching.

If there is an outstanding resource for heat treating, it is this forum. Even here, it is necessary to sift through the information to find something that works for you.

By way of example, ATS34 / 154CM can be austenized between 1870 - 2000 degrees, in foil or turco or pcb powder, with soak times between 15 minutes and 1 hour - then quenched in oil, air, salts or thick aluminum (or steel) plates - either followed or not by cryo and tempered from the ridiculous to the sublime in either high or low range. :rolleyes:

They all work to some extent and you have to decide what works for you and your application.

It's all science - but choosing the science is something of an art. :)

Rob!
 
Hello Chris: Thanks very much..those are the exact ones I have been lookng for. Did they all come from thr "Heat Treaters Guide? Thanks again.
John Lloyd
 
Yes John, all of those pages are scans from the Heat Treater's Guide. If you want to look at the book without spending all the money to buy a copy, you can probably borrow it from your local library. That's what I did.
 
kbaknife said:
Got one for W2?
Click to expand...

I have been told that the isothermal graph in the Heat Treaters Guide would indicate that you CAN'T fully quench W2 fast enough which, as we know, it NOT true with the thin stuff we use.:D Take a look at the posted graph for W1
 
Since there has been a bit of legal wrangling going on in these forums I thought I would post a note here:

While I am sure that the ASM is very glad that their data book is used as a standard reference for knife makers, I doubt they are happy that the pages are scanned and published on this forum (and thus on the web). They get a high price for their book, not because they are greedy, but because it takes a lot of research and work to assemble and continually update a book of this scope. We should be forthright enough to support their efforts by either
1) Buying a copy
2) Borrowing a copy from a friend or Library for our own research.
3) Asking a friendly knifemaker the temps/times from the book (a regular item on this forum).

We should NOT be copying whole pages for any more than personal use, and should not distribute those copies. Besides being a copyright infringement, it is not in our best interests to slap the face of those who are helping up. (BTW, the copyright use permission under "educational use" specifically does not allow publication in any form)

I say give up one beer (or Starbuck's coffee) a week and you can buy yourself a copy by next Christmas.

The other plus is that having a $200+ book will encourage you to read it. There is a lot more in those books than just charts. You will learn some metallurgy reading one. Also, looking up the data for yourself, and reading the WHY of it will help you learn how to figure your own HT specs, not just ask blindly.

Stacy

jdm61
W-2 is a shallow hardening steel. Those charts show that a casting or stamping size piece will surface harden and have a soft core (which is usually desirable in that situation). For the thickness of a knife blade, the hardening will be fully hardened as long as the steel is brought below 900F in less than 1-2 seconds (quite easy in water or brine, and attainable with a fast oil). If you are making a BIG chopper with a 1/4" spine, it is possible that the center of the spine area will be a tougher and less hard structure.The edge area would be fully hardened at least 75% of the way toward the spine. That would be a plus in my book.
Stacy
 
bladsmth said:
Since there has been a bit of legal wrangling going on in these forums I thought I would post a note here:

While I am sure that the ASM is very glad that their data book is used as a standard reference for knife makers, I doubt they are happy that the pages are scanned and published on this forum (and thus on the web). They get a high price for their book, not because they are greedy, but because it takes a lot of research and work to assemble and continually update a book of this scope. We should be forthright enough to support their efforts by either
1) Buying a copy
2) Borrowing a copy from a friend or Library for our own research.
3) Asking a friendly knifemaker the temps/times from the book (a regular item on this forum).

We should NOT be copying whole pages for any more than personal use, and should not distribute those copies. Besides being a copyright infringement, it is not in our best interests to slap the face of those who are helping up. (BTW, the copyright use permission under "educational use" specifically does not allow publication in any form)

I say give up one beer (or Starbuck's coffee) a week and you can buy yourself a copy by next Christmas.

The other plus is that having a $200+ book will encourage you to read it. There is a lot more in those books than just charts. You will learn some metallurgy reading one. Also, looking up the data for yourself, and reading the WHY of it will help you learn how to figure your own HT specs, not just ask blindly.

Stacy

jdm61
W-2 is a shallow hardening steel. Those charts show that a casting or stamping size piece will surface harden and have a soft core (which is usually desirable in that situation). For the thickness of a knife blade, the hardening will be fully hardened as long as the steel is brought below 900F in less than 1-2 seconds (quite easy in water or brine, and attainable with a fast oil). If you are making a BIG chopper with a 1/4" spine, it is possible that the center of the spine area will be a tougher and less hard structure.The edge area would be fully hardened at least 75% of the way toward the spine. That would be a plus in my book.
Stacy
Click to expand...
Kevin told me that a while back and he said that you can get some pretty wild figure if you etch even a "fully hardened" large blade. I noticed that when I polished out the bowie that I sold to Colin KC, it had faint lines that made it looke like it had been edge quenched. I used heated Tough Quench on that one, whihch I guess is a "slow" fast oil, if that makes any sense:D It works fine on small blades, but I'm using Parks #50 on all of my W2 and 1084 stuff now.
 
bladsmth said:
Since there has been a bit of legal wrangling going on in these forums I thought I would post a note here:

While I am sure that the ASM is very glad that their data book is used as a standard reference for knife makers, I doubt they are happy that the pages are scanned and published on this forum (and thus on the web). They get a high price for their book, not because they are greedy, but because it takes a lot of research and work to assemble and continually update a book of this scope. We should be forthright enough to support their efforts by either
...
Click to expand...

When I post charts or graphs, if folks look closely they are not expact copies of any published version. I heavily rework or recreat my own in Photoshop inorder to be entirely free of the whole copywrite thing, but that is also why I am not very prolific in posting such things, it takes time for me to create them. That is also a very large part of why I got involved in metallography, I was always in the need of micrographs that were not the property of somebody else.

The size vs. depth of hardening issue has been addressed here and it is a very valid point. It is often pointed out that we spend too much time with TTT curves based on equilibrium conditions in determining what happens in quenching, while Continous Cooling Curves deal specifically with these circumstances. However, TTT curves are generated using samples of smaller cross section while the C-T curves are based more upon the standards of the Jominy end quench methods, which involve round cross sections of 1" diameters. Neither diagrams are dead on for what we do, but I have always found the TTT to be more useful than trying to extrapolate the C-T curves.

In water W-2 should be able to through harden, but in light oils the through hardening will be limited to increasingly thinner cross sections. I would expect around 3/16" to be around the limit to avoid fine pearlite. To get a better grasp of these concepts I would once again refer back to the Jominy type test for examples of shallow vs. deep hardening of steel.
 
Kevin R. Cashen said:
When I post charts or graphs, if folks look closely they are not expact copies of any published version. I heavily rework or recreat my own in Photoshop inorder to be entirely free of the whole copywrite thing, but that is also why I am not very prolific in posting such things, it takes time for me to create them. That is also a very large part of why I got involved in metallography, I was always in the need of micrographs that were not the property of somebody else.

The size vs. depth of hardening issue has been addressed here and it is a very valid point. It is often pointed out that we spend too much time with TTT curves based on equilibrium conditions in determining what happens in quenching, while Continous Cooling Curves deal specifically with these circumstances. However, TTT curves are generated using samples of smaller cross section while the C-T curves are based more upon the standards of the Jominy end quench methods, which involve round cross sections of 1" diameters. Neither diagrams are dead on for what we do, but I have always found the TTT to be more useful than trying to extrapolate the C-T curves.

In water W-2 should be able to through harden, but in light oils the through hardening will be limited to increasingly thinner cross sections. I would expect around 3/16" to be around the limit to avoid fine pearlite. To get a better grasp of these concepts I would once again refer back to the Jominy type test for examples of shallow vs. deep hardening of steel.
Click to expand...
3/16's fully hardened gets me where I want to be :D
 
I got a Heat Treater's Guide for two weeks through an interlibrary loan

Also bought one from Barnes & Noble online. Buy a membership and get 20% off the price, plus there are online coupons all the time. I got an additional 15% coupon, total $173 taxed & shipped. Just order a few more things with the member discount to justify the membership fee for the year.

You can also check ebay and used book stores for old cooling curve atlases, the carbon and old tool steels are in them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top