Heat Treating A2

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Warneraa

Joined
Jan 10, 2012
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I'm looking to heat treat a knife I am making out of A2 steel....I will be using a torch and then a toaster oven. Any help?

Thanks
Andrew
 
Dan Pierson said:
Send it out for HT. You can't do a good job on A2 with that equipment.
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+1. I have heard of guys using a torch to harden A2 for cutting tools for lathes and such but I wouldn't expect it to work well for a knife blade at all. Best to stick with simple steels if you don't have proper heat treating equipment, send the high alloy stuff to a pro.
 
I'd say send it out, too. It's not that expensive, check out the Paul Bos HT shop at Buck Knives, Texas Knife supply HT service, and Peter's HT'ing. A plus is that you can get that A2 blade to a nice finish beforehand, they do clean work.
 
Heat treating specs on A2 call for 1750-1800F for an extended hold time of 30-45 minutes. At those temps and holds, you need to protect the steel from significant decarb and pitting using something like SS foil. When heating with a torch, you have no way of monitoring temperatures that high and maintaining those temps without overheating for any significant length of time. Also, tempering for A2, if hardened correctly, needs tempering ranges of 400-600F to get to whatever your targeted hardness is. A toaster oven might have some trouble holding those temps accurately as well.

There are many places that could appropriately harden A2 for you. Where are you located? If it's in the US, you have a good number of options that will harden a single blade and send it back to you fully tempered and hardness tested.

--nathan
 
not a good idea to heat treat A2 with a torch high heats need to be held for long periods of time and unless you are making a surgens scalpel this is near impossible for a knife.
 
Thanks for the help guys just trying to get into knife making and would like to try to do it all myself but if I am wasting my time I will check out the HT companys you guys suggested. Thanks again.
 
Warneraa said:
Thanks for the help guys just trying to get into knife making and would like to try to do it all myself but if I am wasting my time I will check out the HT companys you guys suggested. Thanks again.
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You just have to match your steel selection with your intent and your capabilities. It's only wasted time if you give up!
 
Not to beat a dead horse, but you really do need tight temp controls for a proper HT of A2.
 
chad2 said:
not a good idea to heat treat A2 with a torch high heats need to be held for long periods of time and unless you are making a surgens scalpel this is near impossible for a knife.
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A surgeon's scalpel would actually be even harder to hold with a torch for long periods of time... It'd be a sparkler for sure. it has less thermal mass so overshoots of temperature would happen quickly!
 
Brian Ayres said:
A surgeon's scalpel would actually be even harder to hold with a torch for long periods of time... It'd be a sparkler for sure. it has less thermal mass so overshoots of temperature would happen quickly!
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i was only talking size of blade not thickness ;)
 
Not to highjack this thread but how fine of a finish should one put on an A2 blade before heat treat?
Iv got a batch of chunky kiridashis im working on and im getting close to sending them out for HT.
Thanks
 
I agree with everybody on the original question. I use a lot of A2; I don't think you will be happy with the torch HT results.

AntCaps, I grind just shy of finished dimension to either 400P or 600P depending on my mood.
 
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