heat treating with salts

[AelSic]

I have heard about heat treating steels with heat salt. Does anyone have any more info on this subject?

 

[yoda4561]

I dont know much, but what I know I shall share. Salt heat treating involves 2 different kinds of salts, one is a high temp salt for heating teh blade red hot, the other is a lower temp salt used to (quench and draw a temper???) The main benefit of salt treating is the lack of scale on the blade, allowing the maker to finish a blade closer to the final finish without worrying about messing it up during the heat treat. I belive the salt method also lowers the risk of the blade warping.

------------------
One with the Force you must be...

WISH NOT TO BE A JEDI!!
NO PENSION YOU SAY!!

Hmph! a Jedi desires not these things.

 

[Snickersnee]

And then there's AUSTEMPERING! My personal favorite. If you haven't seen what an austempered blade can do, you're missing out. I've seen carbon steel knives that can flex 90 degrees and return true, a shovel that did the same at 180 degrees.

By taking a long hot bath in molten salts, the steel goes straight to banite without forming martensite, and the inherent microfractures/stresses. The trick to it is you can only austemper thin matierial, maybe half an inch, but that's not a problem for knives.

 

[Bob Rosenfeld]

There is a company called Heatbath corp. in Detroit. Their e-mail is www.heatbath.com and they will send you information on heat tretment wth salts. I believe there is also a discussion on salt bath in the swordforum.com site