Heat treat N690 Stainless

N

Nicolas Joseph

Joined
Jun 2, 2018
Messages
16
Hi guys,
I have searched around for a bit for info on heat treating N690 Stainless steel, and I haven’t found much helpful info. I am a beginner knife-maker who is trying to move into the realm of stainless steels. I have a homemade, quite effective forge but no heat treatment oven. Can anyone give me advice on the hardening and tempering of the steel with the equipment I have?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
It’s not a good idea to try heat treating in a forge, especially high alloy steel. Send knives to a professional heat treater. One of the worst things you can do is make knives that won’t perform well and develop a reputation of making subpar knives. New knife makers try to save money by doing their own heat treating in equipment that is not designed for it which is a terrible idea.

Can’t stress this enough, either get the proper heat treating equipment or send it to a professional heat treater.

It takes money to make knives.

Hoss
 
Hey D DevinT would you say the same for an "easier" steel such as 1075 or 1095? These are steels we frequently see Youtube-knifemakers and the like heat treating with something like a blowtorch and a big can of canola oil, and I've been thinking this might be a way to go for starting out.

It's either that or D2 or N690 and a professional heat treat for my first few knives...
 
bemymonkey said:
Hey D DevinT would you say the same for an "easier" steel such as 1075 or 1095? These are steels we frequently see Youtube-knifemakers and the like heat treating with something like a blowtorch and a big can of canola oil, and I've been thinking this might be a way to go for starting out.

It's either that or D2 or N690 and a professional heat treat for my first few knives...
Click to expand...

1095 requires very precise temp control and engineered quench oil or brine (risky) to properly heat treat. 1095 offers very little that other steels like W2, 52100, or cruforge-v do better. All being over 0,85% carbon require precise temp control and the correct quench medium to harden. Cruforge-v is the least picky of those to heat treat, but there are better choices.

1084, 1075/1080, 8670, 15n20, 80crv2, and 5160 are all much more forgiving in heat treat. Each will perform much better with precise heat treat, but they will harden in a forge with a short soak, and quenched in warmed canola oil. I use a lot of higher end steels now, but most of my customers rave about the knives I made them in 15n20 or 8670. A lot of them love the z-wear, v4e, or S35VN, but they find they need better stones to maintain the edges, or the need to upgrade to a sharpening system. Properly heat treated, low alloy and simple steels will outperform anything bought at a big box store.

8670 is my recommendation for the best beginner steel. It has the widest, most forgiving heat treat range of any of the steels I have tested. It will get near max hardness from approx 1450-1600f, with 1525f being the optimum. 8670 is also the toughest steel Larrin has tested so far. You really can’t go wrong with it.
 
If you are going to heat treat at home in a forge, at minimum get a thermocouple from Auberins and read the temp in your forge. Before I got my kiln, I found I could get about a 10 min soak with temp stable for that time before it would creep up or down. A pid forge is better, but much more expensive. To do this right, and to do stainless, you need a kiln and a way to do sub zero, preferably cryo.
 
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