heating and quenching, a newbie wants to know

[ttoney83]

Can steel be heated and quenched an unlimited amount of times without it affecting the tempering process in the end? That is, If, when working on a blade, you decide to stop working on forging it for the night, should it be quenched or left to cool over night, to be reworked the next day?
Thanks,
ttoney83

 

[Mark Williams]

Can steel be heated and quenched an unlimited amount of times without it affecting the tempering process in the end? That is, If, when working on a blade, you decide to stop working on forging it for the night, should it be quenched or left to cool over night, to be reworked the next day?
Thanks,
ttoney83

Just let it cool after a normalizing heat is what I do , unless.....You are at or very near final shape.

Heating and quenching during the forging process can help refine the grain , but I dont mean heat and quench, heat and quench like you see on TV I mean a quick quench, let it cool and then continue forging.

But....... You can refine the grain too much to the point where the hardenability is reduced.

 

[Donald Babcock]

What I have been suggested to do (haven't done this yet as I haven't forged a blade yet) is keep a bucket of ashes (wood stove ashes work good for this) near by and bury the blade a inch of two in the ashes. This lets the blade cool slowly (so it wont get hard) and it is covered on all sides (by the ashes) and is in a metal bucket, so noone can get burned by the hot metal.

This process will also help to slightly relieve the stresses in the metal from the forging process.

Just my $.02 on the matter.