normalize before HT?

J

james7729

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Apr 9, 2008
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I'm dealing with 5160, 8670 and cruforgeV. After forging I normalize 3 times and soak in the turned off forge. I then rough grind and now I have a brand new HT oven. The question is do I have to normal ize after the rough grind before I put them in the kiln? The reason I got the kiln is to have the best blade I can possibly make. Please let me know , those of you who use a HT oven what works best with these steel choices.
Thanks for sharing your experience
James
 
Grinding can set up a lot of stress in a blade, I generally normalize twice after forging (no long soak, though), and once right before hardening. i get very, very little warping with this method, and the visible grain is quite small.
 
Since industry and bladesmiths tend to have different definitions of "normalizing", I also thought I would mention a standard industrial process. Forging can affect carbon distribution, carbide size, grain size as well as residual strain energies, so it certainly could use a full normalizing which involves well exceeding the critical range and full solution. However machining and grinding only induces strain issues and does not really affect grain size or carbon distribution, so a good stress relieving is really all that is necessary, and in industry this is a sub-critical operation that does not risk much decarb, scaling or any other issues normally accompanying actual normalizing. A quick heat to around 1200F should relieve stresses and reset the strain switch nicely.
 
Thanks guys, Thats what I needed. I can't wait to see how the oven (sugar creek 24") will make a difference in the quality of the steel.
 
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