Heat Treating Is An Art

[Tai Goo]

“Heat treating has long been an art, and like art, it has not been fully appreciated by the masses,” said Joe Warchol, V.P. Technical for Houghton International, a founding member of the CHTE (Center for Heat Treating Excellence). “The CHTE will try to turn this ‘art’ into more of a science, which will hopefully result in more widespread acceptance and appreciation for the benefits and applications for heat treating in industry today. By developing more accurate heat treating methods, the process will be more predictable.”

Heat treating is an art that relies to a large degree on science, not unlike any other art. Heat treating strives to become “more scientific“, but it will never become pure science, due to it’s nature as an art. Heat treating is simply a means to manipulate and predict the properties of steel, but will never be 100% predictable due to the nature of it.

As an art, heat treating requires skill, experience, experimentation, imagination, creativity, intuition and know how. This part will not change and is important to understand.

(Edited to say, I can't post on this topic at my current membership level, since it's been moved to "Around the Grinder".)

 

[rjdepedro]

"Heat treating is an art that relies to a large degree on science"

Very true, and well said.

A piece of lesser metal can be transformed into a finer object and a useful tool, with new and unique characteristics, through skillful heat treating. The range of possible results is limited only by the skills and artistic effort of the craftsman manipulating and controlling the application of heat on metal.

I've had the chance to use simple knives that performed beyond expectation, because skillful heat treatment expanded the intrinsic capabilities of the steel. From a Japanese sword to a daily use kitchen knife, the advantage of artful heat treatment on the blade becomes obvious when compared with similar cutlery of comparable or even superior metal, which hasn't received the care and attention of a craftsman artistically treating the blade with heat.

Certainly a very relevant comment from a craftsman who makes unique and outstanding blades.

 

[thegeek574]

So it's an art. So is everything else. Everything to painting, which requires less science that vision, to Mathematics, which, while many argue is the most pure of the sciences, still lets the art of the mathematician shine through in how he goes about it. Heat treat is an art, but, just like everything else, has a level of sciences in it that you have to take advantages of. The more we use science and stop using art, the more repeatable the results will become. Very few things in life are predictable, and nothing is in practical life. However, in knife making among a few other things, how we do things like heat treatment affects the result of the knife, and a sold product should be as good as we can make it. Science does that better and with more consistency than art.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Just to keep things simple, I am moving this to ATG.

 

[scott.livesey]

there is no art in heat treat. it is strictly science. we make 12 million parts per year, each part is heat treated at least three times. the 4 to 5 pound parts are induction heated to >1700 degrees, quenched then on to the next step. in my time with the company, we have made over 125,000,000 parts and have no failures due to heat treat. you cannot do that with art.
the old sailor

 

[stabman]

I understand the desire to tie art and science together.

I happen to like a series of books in which there are tech priests, and enginseers. I think a vast number of people still lament the time when science divorced itself from mysticism, in which it was initially entangled.

Fond wishes do not reality make though.

 

[Atlas Knife Company]

there is no art in heat treat. it is strictly science. we make 12 million parts per year, each part is heat treated at least three times. the 4 to 5 pound parts are induction heated to >1700 degrees, quenched then on to the next step. in my time with the company, we have made over 125,000,000 parts and have no failures due to heat treat. you cannot do that with art.
the old sailor

Allow me to play Devil's Advocate for a moment. So, by your definition, none of the millions of copies of the Mona Lisa would qualify as art? Certainly they aren't as deeply artistic as the original, but they must surely be considered art.

"I may not know art, but I know what I like!"

 

[AVigil]

Sorry Guys Tai Goo has been banned from Blade Forums.

So he will not be able to continue this discussion here.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

And for that reason, I will close it.