Heat Treatment - Crystal Weaving Foundation

[BluntCut MetalWorks]

Awesome test, Luong. Hard to believe that Z-Tuff rippled at those temps and at 63.25 Rc. That is extraordinary toughness. I know Z-Tuff is crazy tough -- even more so than 3V. But those temps and that steel hardness banging against wood that hard and that cold would seem to defeat the toughness of any steel. Can you explain why it rolled rather than chipped?

Thanks J! Ztuff & CD1 have DTBTT(ductile to brittle transition temperature) around -100F to -120F therefore dry-ice subzero didn't affected them, where ice-packed blue gum wood sure harder at -40F. At 400x (pure optical) CD1 micro-chips could be from poorly prepared (ground and sharpened) - will retest(cool to maybe cryo/LN2) when time permits. Instead of chipped, Ztuff and 1095 both rippled | rolled because both matrixes compose of nano martensite blocks(MB) produced by BCMW's sub graining technique, high coverage tight-packed MB provide stiffness (resistance to lateral flex) but still allow decent slippage (plasticity/deformation) <= maybe/could-be got good result for wrong reasons

Blue gum is a very hard wood, about like mesquite and twice the hardness of black oak. I expected all three blades to shatter.

Indeed blue gum hardness is around 2400 ft/lbs in janka test. Frozen blue gum probably 3K+ ft/lbs janka hardness. If 1st blade shattered, only internal document and 2-3 persons will know about it

You also brought back some bad memories of the year I left northern Wisconsin more than four decades ago. The low the previous winter hit 63 F below zero -- actual temperature, not wind chill. If you could get your car started in the morning, it took a block or so of bouncing down the street before the tires' flat spot from parking became round again.

Thanks for bringing such expertise to the forum.

Oh my frozen goodness -63F, one can hardly breath & blink and just might forget about start the car engine in the parking lot and bouncing down the road with froze-flat wheels. My coldest experience was 5F night time ski on Alpental's (WA) top lift - stumbled down the diamond slope all the way to southern Calif heheh.