How far to cool when normalizing?

S

syvmn

Joined
Apr 5, 2009
Messages
169
Hey guys. I am attempting to normalize a piece of W2 right now. The plan is to heat to 1500, cool, 1475, cool, then 1425 and quench.

My question is how far do I cool it in between the temperatures and how fast should it go from 1500 down?

The reason I am asking is because I'm using my first forge (handmade by me ;)) and I've never normalized the 1080 I used before. Its been about 10 minutes and its down from 1500 to 1250...seems really slow.
Thanks for any help!
 
Are you leaving it in the forge? I go about 1600, then take it out of the forge and cool to black heat, then 1500 quench, back in the forge to 1500 immediately, then in air to black heat, then to about 1000 or so (just barely glowing in the dark) and let cool in air. The whole process takes me about 10-15 minutes per knife (if I happen to be doing one knife at a time). I dont know if this is the perfect way to do it, but when I snap a quenched blade after following this procedure, the grain is silky smooth.
 
Black heat is good as far as I know. Just make sure you do it in the dark with the lights off so you'll know when black is really black.
 
I do it similar to Matthew...

1600F air cool to 900F, water quench.
1500F air cool to 900F, water quench.
1450F oil quench to fully harden.
1200F air cool to 900F, twice.

(Truth be told, I don't use my kiln for the above thermal cycling anymore, so those are my goal temperatures... probably not actual)

If I am working with L6(RDS), I use my kiln and spheroidize by heating to 1250F, hold for 1hr, cool 50F/hr to 900F, shut down and let it cool in the kiln.
 
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