I guess my method isn't scientific enough, but it works fine.
If I have to anneal, I just heat to red and air cool. It's been done that way for hundreds of years.
Bill, I have no desire to disagree with you or oppose your method of doing things since it obviously works quite well for you and if you have found success for your applications I would be a fool to try to mess with that, nor should you let me. What I really want is to offer some counter points to the argument that
"It's been done that way for hundreds of years" which is not at all unique to this conversation but is indeed quite prevalent in our field.
First however one point that may be confusing participants in this conversation is the interchangeable use of normalizing operations and annealing. I know of nobody who anneals more than once, but multiple normalizing cycles can be of great benefit. Normalizing involves air cooling for the purpose of refining the internal condition of the steel. Annealing involves slower cooling than air for the purpose of softening sand stress relieving the steel. Technically only nonferrous metals can actually be “annealed” by air cooling, air cooling steel by definition is normalizing.
Now back to the appeal to the authority of tradition argument, rather than directing my dissent to you I would rather urge the bladesmithing community at large to please reconsider this very flawed argument for techniques. Virtually every field of exploration or endeavor for mankind, outside of knifemaking, holds up the amount of innovation it has seen over the centuries as a sign of progress or quality. Which is more inspiring, a technology that boasts huge advancements in the last century or one that can say it hasn’t changed a bit for the last several centuries? The latter is most often a good recipe for extinction. When we seek out a surgeon do we want the guy who embraces all the advancements in medicine he can or a guy who believes leaches and banishing bad air spirits still works as good as it ever did?
We may argue that those traditions are more the heart of the craft than the product itself, but this would bring us to the most problematic aspect of the stance that
"It's been done that way for hundreds of years" which is-
it hasn't, at least not by any field that managed to keep up. Aside from all of the appeals to or dissent from tradition the one critical point that doing things the old fashioned way does not take into account is the evolution of steel.
The old ways worked not for hundreds of years, but thousands of years, however alloying and modern steel manufacturing changed everything. Simply applying ancient techniques to modern alloys is like working on a computer with a hammer. Heating and air cooling simple iron and carbon alloys from hundreds of years ago could actually approach annealing operations, however even our simplest carbon steels today contain copious amounts of manganese and multiple trace elements. Modern steel making methods changed everything, other metalworking fields that adapted to these changes became the driving forces in industry while those who rigidly adhered to tradition were left behind.
Once again please do not think this is about you in any way, you seem to be doing fine, but the appeal to tradition position is very, very common yet terribly flawed, and I have the best of intentions in hoping folks would abandon it for a better reasoning. :thumbup:
