I seek advice on 52100 Heat-treatment

Ed Fowler said:
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There is a reference to it in the 10th edition of "The Making Shaping and Treating of Steel" by USS United States Steel. Page 1264. I also read about it in a book that was written in the 30's where they had used what I call multiple quench on some 5160. In a footnote they stated "This was the finest grain in this steel we have ever noted." .........
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Ed, could you tell me, please, what chapter and part that's in? I have a 7th edition (1957) and it only has 1048 pages including the index! :o It's sort of cool, because inside the leaf is penned, "General Open hearth" and I wonder where it's been?

Any help pointing me to the right place so I can read that section would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
The 10th edition was written in 1985, as far as I know they had not written anything about it until the some time in the 1960's, this is heresay as I have not read all of them.
It is in principles of heat treatment of steel, section 3 heat-treatment procedures - quenching and tempering.

If you have time to read the book in its entirety you will find may procedures that can apply in other venues. I have not found one book that really puts it all together in one place, I beleive that is just because they aren't really interested in making knives. I have found usefull informatin in many places that you would not believe could apply to lady knife.

I have found reference to multiple quench in novels written in the 1920's.
The first time I heard about it was in a book called "King Authur and his Knights" that my grandmother read me before I could read.
 
Alan Molstad said:
I use one of them little bottles of stay-brite flux.
the solder is from radio Shack....

QUESTION:....Could any type of flux cause harm to steel in any manner?
Click to expand...

The Sta bright flux was just sitting in a box for a few years...It had a cap on all that time, but I lost the cap this year in the junk pile I call my workbench.

I know I should go get some new flux, but Im never sure what type is best for my plans?
I solder brass to steel.
Mostly 5160, but if this bearing knife works out I will be sticking with 52100 for the rest of the winter.

The solder is the low-temp stuff that I get at Radio Shack.
I use the normal silver solder without the Rolisin? core.

I heat with an O/A torch with a smaller flame sticking out only about 6 inches or so.
I heat from "Underneath" the guard, hitting both the tang and the 1/4 inch thick brass guard.

I have tried all kinds of ways to add the solder to the guard, NOTHING BUT TROUBLE!
what I do right now is wrap the solder wire 2 times around the knife just above the guard. Then I run a few drops of Stay Bright flux around the joint.
Then I use a toothpick and jam the solder wire down into the blade/guard gap and start to heat.

Once the heat is enough to begin to melt the wire solder, I use a small brass rod to push down any solder that did not fall into the joint, then I run the brass rod into the crack to fill any spots that happen.

I always have a few spots that dont seem to get filled in , thus I use the little brass rod to smear the hot solder around to fill the gaps.

Later I use that black wet/dry sanpaper to clean up the solder that get up onto the blade, then buff.

What would I do differently to help this along next time?
 
Thanks, Ed! I found the section and will read through it to see if had been included yet.

It's such a cool book. I have never sat down and read it, because every time I pick it up I end up paging all around, marveling at the process. My Pa and Grandpa and almost all my uncles on my mother's side worked at the local US Steel plant where they drew wire, galvanized for Cyclone fence around the corner, and made screws and nails. I suppose we have 250 man years of workers for US Steel in those two generations and all my generation were "forbidden" from working there by those who had worked in that hellhole. It closed in 1980. My Pa was the last man out and "turned off the light" so to speak. Metal was in my blood from my earliest days.....

Apologies for the digression, Alan. I enjoyed your video.... my wife likes to work in the forge with me, too!
 
As I know by their posts, that some of the worlds best knife makers are paying attention to this forum topic, I am going to take advantage of this situation.

I have another problem that is connected to my soldering problem.

The knife I make has a taper that goes from the tip all the way to the brass guard.
This means that when I do the work on the platen of my belt grinder, I use both hands and push slightly harder with the one near the tip than with the hand near the tang.

This helps me have that taper in the finished blade when I'm done.

The problem is that I grind this flat taper from the tip all the way past where the brass guard will go.

However because I don't grind flat all of the tang, I have a hard time as I file the hole in the brass guard to fit over the tang.
The truth is that as I slide the brass over the tang to "test fit" the brass, I actually have to twist the guard a bit left and right to get the guard to slide past all the bumps and twists of the tang along the way.
This is because the tang is never straight under the future handle, nor is it that entirely flat until I get to the area where it will finally sit.

Now the tang where the guard sits is actually slightly tapered toward the point at that spot, Thus, I always end up with a Guard slot that is always a bit too big.

OR....(Here comes yet another problem)
or I will end up with a nice fit between the brass guard and the tang, except that when I sand and buff the brass one last time and then slide it on the knife, I notice in the mirror finish of the brass that the knife blade is slightly out of line.

When I sight down the knife blade and then look into the mirror finish of the brass, it should all look like one long blade.
If it is even slightly off to the side you can tell right away.

the only way I know how to fix things at that point is to file the guard hole slightly bigger so I can open up enough space in the brass to be able to twist the knife into line and be straight.

Thus, I always need a ton of solder wire to fill the gaps,

Suggestions?
 
Alan, spend some time on your tang. It'll be worth it in the end. All my forged blades are narrow hidden tang style. I mic. the whole length to be sure I'm thinner than the riccaso area. The sides are only a few file strokes thinner, but this gives you a sholder all the way around.
 
For those of you who can't get ahold of the US Steel Book I will try to sumarize a part of the discussion about what I call multiple quench.

"Grain-Refining Heat Treatment---The beneficial effect of finer greain size in increasing strength and toughness has led to widespread use of steels killed with aluminum or containing other greai-refining elements such as vanadium or niobiom.Grain refinement can also be obtained and usually carried burther, by a special teattreatment developed and patented by United States Steel Corproation. ----------------two or more rapid austenitizing-quenching cycles. The grain size is progressively refined by each cycle with the result that an ultrafine austenite grain size of No. 12 ASTM can be developed arter the fourth cycle. The number of cycles may be varied depending on the response of a particular steel.

The grain refinement resulting from this rapid austenitizing brings about a increase in strength with little or no loss in cuctility and notch toughness and with a marked improvement in ductile-to brittle transistion temperature."

This is the meat of the section. There is more information, but you should get the idea. They do not list the steel they were using in the development of fine grain. What we found with alloys containing Vanaduim what that while fine grained, they were also very brittle.

Should you wish to work up multiple quench variables in your steel of choice, you will have to do some experimenting. Rex has worked with us for years, the lab work was extensive, knives tested to destruction numerous but we figured it out for 52100 and quality 5160. Those who have seen our new DVD will know all the little things we figured out. When we started a grain size of 10 was the theoritical limit in 52100. Today we can achieve 14 and finer.

The key that led us to what we know now all started with testing knives doing what we wanted them to do. I came across the potential of multiple quench by accident, I would have never had any idea that it worked to improve the quality of the knives I made without the information gained from testing blades.

I invite you to read the next two issues of Blade and join in the gathering of information if you are intested.

Thanks for reading and by the way, Merry Christmas.
Take Care
 
The 52100 knife is finished!

this knife is the very best i have ever finished.
I wanted it to now go to someone I know, as I would like to see how this knife works out in the future, thus Im going to give this knife to my fater-in-law for his birthday next week.

I sent my brother the short video clip of my wife and I forging the 52100 ball bearing and he wanted me to make and send him more clips, and as I am going to make them anyway, and this topic was just sitting here not doing anything, I have decided to post the links to each video I post to my brother on YouTube .

Im right now about to start on the sheath for the finished knife.

I will try to take a few moments of video as I make it...
(Unless something bad happens, then I will clear away this post and pretend I know nothing about any video clips...LOL)
The sheath should take the rest of the night to make,,,,
I hope I can upload clips while the glue drys and things like that...
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aUuBI-3c68

In this new video clip I'm talking to my brother about the sheath Im making right now for my first 52100 knife.

I also have another knife made from a John Deere shaft of 5160 steel.
I like to always try to make two knives at a time as it gives me something to do while any glue drys on the other knife.
You will see me talking about how I wrap the knife in leather, and how I mark the places where the holes will go for the stitching.

You also get a chance to see my knife.
 
Your enthusiasm is encouraging Alan, stick with it. I never thought of looking at the mirror image of the blade in a guard, that is a good idea.
 
I finished my first 52100 blade and sheath and sent it off to it's new home!

But, I went ahead and now started my 2nd 52100 blade just to see if I could do better....

Now the advice i received on this topic last time I asked for the best way to heat-treat the blade was mostly the Fowler system of 3 heat/quenchings.

I was going to again do the same thing , If this is the current thinking about how to get the most out of this type of steel?

I have read lots of advice on a "sticky" topic that I dont really understand at all here. I know there are some who write on this forum that have all kinds of expert advice on all kinds of steels used in knife making. I just hope to get one of the experts to tell me what to do with my steel this next time?

And remember, I have only the tools that I got, and so any advice Im given has to work within the given situation I find myself working within.

My tools to do any future heat-treatments are:
A gas forge
A O/A torch
A quench tank filled with texaco type "A" quench oil
A kitchen oven

Thats it guys, thats what I have to work with here.

So to bring out the most in 52100 steel, (with the listed tools I have to use) I would do what?
 
You have most of what you need, if I were in your shoes my next purchase would be a Paragon. But lets work with what you have.
After forging, quenching, flash normalizes and full normalize I would go to my household oven, put the blade in a cool over, set it on the highest temp it has hold for 2 hours, then let it cool in the oven. Actually you should go higher, but if this is the best you got, use it. Put the blade in the freezer, and aneal again for two cycles. This will be too low for a good low temp aneal, but it will be the most consistent and reliable available to you.

If you can pick up a probe thermometer at a garage sale, you might try two pieces of heated steel covered in ashes and put your blade between them just as an experiment. Try for 900 degrees f. and watch how long it holds the temp.

do your grinding, leave it thick, then follow the regimen as demonstraded in our new DVD.

With the o/x torch you have what I consider the best hardening heat source at your command. Practice the heating to critical and have fun with it. Remember to leave the blade thick and over size, the best steel will lay about 1/32" inside your forged blade.

Then test your blade, compare it to your last one and see what you have gained in performance, write the results down and get ready for the next blade.

Good Luck
 
Alan: in re-reading this thread, I noticed your discussion about pits.
Sometimes this happens when we forge slag into the blade, Without watching your work carefully I don't know if this was the cause. Any fault in the steel will influence the steel below the bottom of the fault. This is why I always forge oversize to remove the influence of tiny faults such as slag or a misdirected hammer blow.

I can't say this is the cause, just one variable to watch for. Keep your anvil clean if needed, keep your temp low and watch and think about what you see.
 
will do!

By the way, after I had finished the first blade and had the guard and handle on, I went back and did that etch thing and it really does show a cool edge effect .
I also got a lot of that banding near the spine as talked about in the video...
Not bad for my first Ball Bearing knife.
 
Ed Fowler said:
After forging,
quenching,
flash normalizes and
full normalize
put the blade in a cool oven, set it on the highest temp it has hold for 2 hours,
then let it cool in the oven.
Put the blade in the freezer,
and aneal again for two cycles.
Click to expand...

Thanks Ed, I have been looking for such a listing that I can keep track of for a while now...
 
Well Christmas is over and I had a great time with my brother and sister out in my forge!

They both wanted to see how I was able to make a knife out of a Ball bearing , so I welded two ball bearings to some rods and was able to forge , with their help, both down to blades.

I have learned to not start hitting the steel until its REALLY HOT.
I also have switched to forming the tang first, then doing the belly of the blade and then the point last as I cut the blade free.
The reason I do this tang first is that the thinner tang seems to help the whole rest of the knife get hot faster. Once the tang is about 1/2 way done it's like the whole rest of the knife is a easy walk downhill from there.

I did 3 of them flash-quenches as seen in the KNIFE TALK video, after I had cut the blade free of the rod and was working down the point.
I also today will keep going down the listed suggestions from above to see how they work for me.
 
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