Help Understanding a term

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panzerjunky

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Aug 13, 2022
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Hello Fellas and Gals.
Thanks For all the help on my Grinding questions before. Have had 3 months at home sitting on my Butt due to brain surgery. Teach me to help someone alongside the road again. But any rate I have 13 or so blanks I have made using stock removal. And was terrified to try to freehand grinding. well, I said WTF. and just did it, Now I have run about 6 of them and sort of got the hang of it .....So thanks for the encouragement earlier. My question now is I am at the point where I need to heat treat. My steel is 3/16 1095 and 2 are 3/16 80Crv2 my question is what a normalizing cycle is. I have a nice 5-gal bucket full of vermiculite Ready to go. Do I just heat to crit temp in my forge and let cool In the vermiculite. A quick explanation of this process would be great. I have been simply heating the 1095 to non-magnetic then quenching in parks 50. then baking at 400 for an hour. and that has been working great. But I have been missing the normalizing step.
Thanks Jerry
 
That video might help out.

First I recommend doing two temper cycles rather than one. Usually even for these low alloy steels there is some amount of retained austenite. Especially if you're heat treating in a forge where you have a higher chance of getting it too hot. The retained austenite gets converted into untempered martensite with the first temper, then that martensite needs to be tempered, so you normally run a second cycle. For higher alloy steels you might even do 3.

Do the first cycle. Cool to room temp (you can even dunk it in water to cool it, it's not going to hurt it.) Then run another temper cycle for another hour.


As far as normalizing. Since it's in a forge, I would say essentially yes just heat to nonmagnetic, then air cool, maybe do that once or twice, then the last time you do that stick it in the vermiculite.

Normally you would normalize at a higher temp than when you austenize steel right before quenching. For low alloy steels around 1650 or 1700. Then usually that's followed by further thermal cycling at lower temperatures at around 1450 to refine the grain left by the hotter normalizing cycle, or annealing. Then finally hardening and tempering.

Oh. And to explain what a normalizing cycle is. Basically it's used to "normalize" the grain, and carbide structure of the steel, by heating it up to a point where all the carbide has dissolved, and is completely transformed to austenite. Which is why it's done at that high of a temperature. Then afterwards. The drawback to this, is the high heat causes the grain structure to be quite large. So that's why it's followed by grain refinement cycles. At normal austenizing temperatures. Also. Doing this will leave you with a pearlitic microstructure normally which is about as ideal as the microstructure can be for heat treating in a forge. Which larrin explains in the video I posted.
 
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Blankblank said:
That video might help out.

First I recommend doing two temper cycles rather than one. Usually even for these low alloy steels there is some amount of retained austenite. Especially if you're heat treating in a forge where you have a higher chance of getting it too hot. The retained austenite gets converted into untempered martensite with the first temper, then that martensite needs to be tempered, so you normally run a second cycle. For higher alloy steels you might even do 3.

Do the first cycle. Cool to room temp (you can even dunk it in water to cool it, it's not going to hurt it.) Then run another temper cycle for another hour.


As far as normalizing. Since it's in a forge, I would say essentially yes just heat to nonmagnetic, then air cool, maybe do that once or twice, then the last time you do that stick it in the vermiculite.

Normally you would normalize at a higher temp than when you austenize steel right before quenching. For low alloy steels around 1650 or 1700. Then usually that's followed by further thermal cycling at lower temperatures at around 1450 to refine the grain left by the hotter normalizing cycle, or annealing. Then finally hardening and tempering.

Oh. And to explain what a normalizing cycle is. Basically it's used to "normalize" the grain, and carbide structure of the steel, by heating it up to a point where all the carbide has dissolved, and is completely transformed to austenite. Which is why it's done at that high of a temperature. Then afterwards. The drawback to this, is the high heat causes the grain structure to be quite large. So that's why it's followed by grain refinement cycles. At normal austenizing temperatures. Also. Doing this will leave you with a pearlitic microstructure normally which is about as ideal as the microstructure can be for heat treating in a forge. Which larrin explains in the video I posted.
Click to expand...
Thank you
Not to beat a dead horse but when you say Cycle that's after quench and in the oven at 400 X 2 or do I heat to Non mag first X2 cool then go one more time then Quench and temper in oven.
 
What I would probably do, especially since you're forge heat treating. Is as follows.

Heat to nonmagnetic, and then a little hotter. Then air cool.

Heat to nonmagnetic, and air cool. X2

Heat to nonmagnetic then quench

Temper 400 for 1 hour 2x
 
Given that it's stock removal I wouldn't worry about normalizing. I would do what blankblank said but probably add one thermal cycle that is cooler than magnetic at the end. Around 1200 degrees or so. Then back up to just above magnetic. If using a forge make sure to use a pipe baffle to help keep everything even. It won't be a perfect heat treat, but should make a pretty good knife. You might consider 1084 if a forge is all you got, it comes out pretty decent out of a forge ht.
 
nmbarta said:
Given that it's stock removal I wouldn't worry about normalizing. I would do what blankblank said but probably add one thermal cycle that is cooler than magnetic at the end. Around 1200 degrees or so. Then back up to just above magnetic. If using a forge make sure to use a pipe baffle to help keep everything even. It won't be a perfect heat treat, but should make a pretty good knife. You might consider 1084 if a forge is all you got, it comes out pretty decent out of a forge ht.
Click to expand...
when you say baffle that just a 2-to-3-inch dia piece of carbon steel pipe with the knife inside just to even out. or better redirect the heat from direct on the piece to more radiant???
 
Yep. I personally like to weld a cap on the far end so heat doesn't rush in that end and overheat the tip of my blade. 2x2 square tubing works good for what I do. You need fairly thick walls. 1/4" works pretty good to have enough thermal mass to keep it even. I turn my forge up pretty hot and let everything preheat, then back off, this seems to help with hot spots.
I back mine down really low at this point, it's tough to keep it at 1500, so I use a small piece of sheet metal to partially block the air intake as I dial the propane down. Then let everything even out. It takes about 30 minutes in mine to get to where I'll heat treat in it.
Keep the lights low and the magnet close. Run a quick test piece and break it to make sure your grain is refined, and your good to go.
 
Blankblank said:
As far as normalizing. Since it's in a forge, I would say essentially yes just heat to nonmagnetic, then air cool, maybe do that once or twice, then the last time you do that stick it in the vermiculite.
Click to expand...
Since we're getting ready to quench, what's the purpose of sticking in vermiculite? The vermiculite step is usually for annealing so the steel is easy to drill holes. Since this is stock removal I'm "assuming" all holes have been drilled and ready for final HT?

nmbarta said:
Given that it's stock removal I wouldn't worry about normalizing.
Click to expand...
Steel received from different vendors might be in different states, spheroidized, etc. Steel from AKS is stated it's ready for HT, When dealing with unknown steel condition the normalizing steps allow putting the steel into a consistent known state. For simple carbon alloys soak at 1600 to 1650F for 10 minutes, (this gets the carbides all into solution, perhaps leaving the grain larger than desired.)

air cool, soak at 1450 to 1500 then air cool, This refines the grain to small size.

then soak at austenitizing temp and quench. Then do the 2X tempers.

The above is my understanding - any errors I"d LOVE to be corrected so I can learn.
 
Ken H> said:
Since we're getting ready to quench, what's the purpose of sticking in vermiculite? The vermiculite step is usually for annealing so the steel is easy to drill holes. Since this is stock removal I'm "assuming" all holes have been drilled and ready for final HT?


Steel received from different vendors might be in different states, spheroidized, etc. Steel from AKS is stated it's ready for HT, When dealing with unknown steel condition the normalizing steps allow putting the steel into a consistent known state. For simple carbon alloys soak at 1600 to 1650F for 10 minutes, (this gets the carbides all into solution, perhaps leaving the grain larger than desired.)

air cool, soak at 1450 to 1500 then air cool, This refines the grain to small size.

then soak at austenitizing temp and quench. Then do the 2X tempers.

The above is my understanding - any errors I"d LOVE to be corrected so I can learn.
Click to expand...
Thank you That is the answer to my Question. I just didn't know what normalizing was and when to do it.
 
You can certainly try anything you want, but when dealing with a forge, most of this is done by "feel" or "eye". Your probably going to miss the perfect scenario, that's the point of the quick quench and break of the test piece. If that doesn't go well, you have to dig a little deeper. If you have a fine grain structure and a quick snap, it's probably about as good as a simple forge ht is going to get. Some guys are better at this than others, but at the end of the day, if it does those two things and gets a decent temper.....it'll clean a couple elk without any problems. It might need touched up a bit more often than perfect, but will run with, or even beat anything you can buy without spending a house payment on it. Test your steel, as stated above, if it goes well, don't over complicate a simple process. If it doesn't ...worry about that at that point.

The odds of pulling off a perfect grain refinement process that you didn't need to do and resulting in a better knife than what what you started with are there, but I'd put them at less than 50% unless you know exactly what your doing. That's just been my experience.....it's worth what you paid for it.
 
Ken H> said:
Since we're getting ready to quench, what's the purpose of sticking in vermiculite? The vermiculite step is usually for annealing so the steel is easy to drill holes. Since this is stock removal I'm "assuming" all holes have been drilled and ready for final HT?


Steel received from different vendors might be in different states, spheroidized, etc. Steel from AKS is stated it's ready for HT, When dealing with unknown steel condition the normalizing steps allow putting the steel into a consistent known state. For simple carbon alloys soak at 1600 to 1650F for 10 minutes, (this gets the carbides all into solution, perhaps leaving the grain larger than desired.)

air cool, soak at 1450 to 1500 then air cool, This refines the grain to small size.

then soak at austenitizing temp and quench. Then do the 2X tempers.

The above is my understanding - any errors I"d LOVE to be corrected so I can learn.
Click to expand...
Whoops I looked at the wrong post. In that he was asking what the purpose of vermiculite it. Yeah essentially it would be if he wanted to anneal.

Generally that would be if someone was forging. I gave the actual recommendation for what I suggest he does later in a post.
 
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