Heat Treat with a torch?

[cotdt]

I haven't been able to find anything conclusive yet, but it would seem that to get all of the carbon into solution and playing with the chromium (chromium carbides) versus pearlite and residual stringers you would want to do an extended soak time (20 plus minutes after uniformly achieving austentizing temp) or you are wasting the benefits of the extra carbon and chromium. Just my thoughts.

Mete any input here?

-Page

What about doing 10 quenches of 1 minute each to make up for the shorter soak times?

 

[sunshadow]

52100 wants a long soak at around 1550 (for 8-10 minutes was a number that was suggested) from what I've been able to find, that gives time for the chromium to interact with the extra carbon and form chromium carbides, leaving just enough leftover carbon to match up with the iron.
The folks trying to torch HT hypereutechtoid steels are likely leaving lots of carbon unattached, which forms things like pearlite. I hate to disillusion folks, but the only thing a file will tell you is that the surface will skate a file (it will probably ruin a drill bit too)

PEARLITE SKATES FILES!


You can have a blade that will skate a file and still have a rockwell in the sub-50s, Kevin Cashen has demonstrated that with a blade that would ruin the best files, yet the rockwell penetrator said 47

-Page