Heat Treating, art or science?

[Rossi Knives]

Ha.

Tai Goo causin' trouble.

It never, ever gets old.

You go, Tai. Sometimes I have no idea what you are talking about, but dammit, I like your style.

-Nick

 

[james terrio]

Heat-Treating IS a science.

Many of you folks are chasing your own tails. Frankly, some of you should be ashamed of yourselves.

"Science" is objective and involves repeatable results, given repeatable variables. Take X alloy, heat it to Y degrees, quench it in Z medium, you will get the same result every dang time. It doesn't matter if you're using panther piss or Park's 50 to quench your steel, as long as you can document it and test the results.

"Art" is subjective and can be "defined" by whomever, whenever, wherever some dipstick decides to pontificate on what they think is "art". It may or may not influence the design of a knife, its balance, or whether it cuts well. It may very well involve how pretty the knife is, or whether it's built with exotic materials. They may have a personal love affair with chunky peanut butter as a quenching medium. None of this means anything in terms of getting the best performance out of a certain steel in a certain application.

Hamons? Edge-quenching? And every other variation you can think of? YES they can all be described the same way, just with more variables. Whether they're "arty" or not depends on your personal opinion. The master-smiths who do this sort of thing for a living, know exactly what they're doing, and why they're doing it. Many of them have documented their procedures on this very forum. That's science.

 

[KnifeMaker.ca]

.... Take X alloy, heat it to Y degrees, quench it in Z medium, you will get the same result every dang time.....

Looks like bait. Smells like bait.

I ain't gonna bite it.

Rob!

 

[james terrio]

...Looks like bait. Smells like bait. ...

What do you mean by "bait"? If my statements are incorrect, I'll gladly correct them.

 

[hardheart]

Probably considered bait because there is a lot of variability which means you don't get the same results every time. X alloy has a range of allowable composition, or better yet, proprietary alloying that differs from one mill to another, while carrying the same name. Y temp can be read by many different devices, in any type of container, and be the temp of several different media. Whether or not the device reads Y, or maybe Y +/- 50 degrees F, whether or not the container has cold/hot spots, or how quickly and evenly the temp is distributed in the media (particularly as it ages/becomes contaminated). And Z results happen if you get ABC right in the timing and measuring of all steps before. And how do you measure Z? Is it rockwell C hardness? Do you get Z, or just Z +/-1 point, or more?

 

[koyote]

Watching this thread....

My soul, for lack of a better word, lies with Tai Goo- I'm an artist, I get better heat treats when I'm "working without thinking" (which is something you need a Roshi to interpret into English properly, it doesn't mean "mindlessness" ... well, it doesn't mean "lack of presence" anyway....) I get better everything when I'm "zenned out".

But! but, but ,but- I rely, heavily, on Kevin's stickies, and posts. I've got a book-like collection of them in a binder. (Kevin's not the only one in there, but he's notable as he's specifically addressed my shop equipment and odd steel choices.)

Why? To keep me based in reality. I have a 6 year old son- a budding engineer/artist. He's not grounded. He's 6- he wants to make battery powered flying robots with a 3 volt wound motor and an erector set.

I have to be grounded in reality- the science of metallurgy (as little as I understand it) and the practices resulting from the science* - or I can't make my art functional. And I've a nutcase for functional!



*Metallurgy is one of those sciences where the science comes from the practice as much as vice versa. I have a friend who teaches this stuff and his definition of his area- metallurgy- is that "it's the only science that still has some alchemical black magic in it that works. And half my career has been figuring out why."

Okay, but the question wasn't if metallurgy is art or science, but if heat treating is. Using the definition of art that gets us the word "artisan"- it's art. One of the most practice based of the "practical arts"


I weaseled my way out of that one!

 

[cotdt]

Like the posters say, heat treating is an exact science but working through the limitations around your equipment requires a lot of creativity. You follow the instructions and set your oven to 1475F, then you find that the knife doesn't perform very well, only to find that the actual temperature of your oven is 100 degrees lower, and furthermore each different spot in your oven is at a different temperature.

You also have to do a lot of knife testing to tweak your heat treat. You have to subjectively determine what a suitable hardness for the knife is, balance strength versus ductility. You can be safe and say "O1 at 59 rc and be done with it!" and have a good knife, but my testing convinces myself that that cutting performance can be significantly improved.

For some steels there's no datasheet to work with, in which you have to come up with your own heat treat. Which is actually very easy if you're familiar with what the kinds of temperatures dissolve the various alloy carbides, but still, it requires a lot of experimentation and tweaking. So there is definitely a lot of subjectivity to it.

 

[JCaswell]

I have read there overwhelming scientific consensus that you can't do a proper job heat treating steel except:

By a full moon ...

In winter ...

With the blade tip pointed North at all times while the blade is glowing ...

Provided that:

You have remained celibate for at least the previous 10 days ...

... and have purified your electric furnace by running it only on solar or wind-generated electricity.

Beyond that, it's all art!

 

[sunshadow]

Still mingling science with technology.

Science is the method by which we achieve predictable, repeatable results by observing a process, changing one variable at a time so to eliminate guesswork and confusion, then working out a theory from the observed data, and finally making tests to validate the theory. This allows us to get better, correct mistakes and, to put it in layman terms, get the knife we want, and not the one that happens to be there at the end of an uncontrolled manufacturing process (i.e.: mucking about cluelessly).
The art is all in what we want. The science, in how to get there.
)

Well stated!

-Page

 

[Tai Goo]

The archetypical symbol of the knife, cuts,... whether or not it even has a real edge! LOL

... it's tucked way down there in our collective sub-consciousness.

 

[Tai Goo]

I was watching a segment on PBS TV last night, about what makes humans different from animals. It’s “culture”,… the arts,… not science. Funny though, because it was a science show.

In it’s most basic, fundamental and rudimentary form,… even animals do science.

Science is step one,… step two through infinity are the arts!

… However, the pendulum always swings in both directions, and we are living in the age of science.

I know some will say that animals also dance, sing, make tools and have language etc,. but is this purely "instinct" in animals? Next question... Is it purely instinct in us too?

 

[Shaughnessy]

What do you mean by "bait"? If my statements are incorrect, I'll gladly correct them.

James you been gone too long....apparently the board has moved in a different direction. Good bad or indifferent I dunno, but not like it was

 

[james terrio]

Probably considered bait because there is a lot of variability which means you don't get the same results every time.

That's true. I was trying to simplify my thoughts for the sake of clarity, and perhaps I over-simplified. My point is, keeping track of those variables and learning from them is what makes it a science.

James you been gone too long...

Maybe I wasn't gone long enough I think I should have kept my mouth shut.

 

[Alarion]

I was watching a segment on PBS TV last night, about what makes humans different from animals. It’s “culture”,… the arts,… not science. Funny though, because it was a science show.

In it’s most basic, fundamental and rudimentary form,… even animals do science.

Science is step one,… step two through infinity are the arts!

… However, the pendulum always swings in both directions, and we are living in the age of science.

I know some will say that animals also dance, sing, make tools and have language etc,. but is this purely "instinct" in animals? Next question... Is it purely instinct in us too?

Every art I know of is deep rooted in science. And it's not a coincidence that with illuminism came a great push forward in arts as well.
Drawing without knowing the principles of anathomy, proportion, perspective, cromatism is nothing but scribble.
True, you can IGNORE or DISTORT these principles and produce art, but you have to know them and know how to distort or ignore them in a proper manner.
Otherwise, there's nothing but instinct.
Dip a dog's paws and tail in paint, and he will paint. But that's not art.

 

[Patrice Lemée]

 

[Justin King]

On some level they are always linked. Painters would be nowhere without chemists to develop paint. Art without science is random creation, which is not really art at all.

 

[eyeeatingfish]

This art vs science thing has gone overboard. It wasnt meant to become some thesis of the dichotomy of art and science.
Was just a simple term to refer to the subject. I chose those words to refer to the simplicity or complexity of the heat treating process.

I would liken it to cooking.
As with knife making cooking is a science, the food has to reach a certain temperature. However now all cooking is the same.

Baking needs specific recipies at specific temperatures for certain times.
A stir fry on the other hand is rather simple, throw the things in, heat it up, eat.

I guess you could say the stainless steels are like baked goods while the stir fry would be like the simple carbon steels.

 

[Justin King]

This art vs science thing has gone overboard. It wasnt meant to become some thesis of the dichotomy of art and science.

Not sure where else it could have gone with this crowd(myself included, this is one of those threads where I stopped myself from posting several times, and only narrowly saved myself from having to use this thingy-:foot

 

[koyote]

It looks like it got sidetracked into a debate of whether or not the KNIFE as a tool or archetype is an artifact of science, or an archetype of Art. And whether or not knifemaking in all its component processes is "art" or "science".

As I sort of roundabout pointed out in an earlier post, the word art has a few different meanings. my take on heat treating itself, as a distinct component of knifemaking, is that if you get past the placing of Art on a pedestal as some holy cow with everlasting life flowing from its teats- and look at what the word means (and why)-

7: the principles or methods governing any craft or branch of learning.
8: the craft or trade using these principles or methods.
9: skill in conducting any human activity

Then I'd argue that heat treating on a practical, artisanal basis is an art.

This is sort of the difference that we joke about - Q: What's the difference between science and engineering? a: Scientists try to figure out what should happen, engineers deal with what actually happens.

You go to school, it's still called Industrial Arts. Right?

 

[sunshadow]

Then I'd argue that heat treating on a practical, artisanal basis is an art.

This is sort of the difference that we joke about - Q: What's the difference between science and engineering? a: Scientists try to figure out what should happen, engineers deal with what actually happens.

I would like to apply an adjustment to that postulate:
Engineers apply science to materials to affect a desired outcome... My experience is that engineers design based on an ideal circumstance

mechanics and technicians deal with what happens when engineering actually intersects with reality (usually on the side of the road in a blizzard with a howling nor'easter at 10 degrees below zero)


I work for engineers. When they want something to actually work because a customer will be auditing the meltshop next week they tell me to come up with something, I tell the maintenance shop machinists what I want and we build it, and it works (usually the first time)

-Page