normalize/thermal cycle

G

GRapp

Joined
Nov 14, 2022
Messages
197
To be clear I'm not asking how it's done as that data is available from several sources including Larrin Thomas's book I've read. Is it accurate to say that the stock I'm using (1084) does not need cycling because I'm doing stock removal and the grain was in good shape from the supplier? If this is accurate, I'd really only need to cycle if I forge from a leaf spring or some other source that takes a beating, right?
 
Yes you normally don’t need to do anything to the steel if it is responding to heat treating like it’s supposed to.

There have been cases where the starting structure is too coarse (spheroidite) and needs to be normalized, thermocycled, and annealed.

Hoss
 
If you are using AKS you should be good to go with no extra steps. Other suppliers not necessarily so. Recently was in a conversation with a fellow maker that had 1084 issues and he needed to normalize and thermal cycle. He only noticed because he has a Rockwell tester and was not reaching the hardness he should of been.

There are probably a lot of soft 1084 stock removal knives out there right now because of the issue of coarse spheroidite structure and makers not actually checking their hardness with a Rockwell tester.
 
"There are probably a lot of soft 1084 stock removal knives out there right now because of the issue of coarse spheroidite structure and makers not actually checking their hardness with a Rockwell tester."

And not just the 1084, either. 52100 and W2 were the ones that really had coarse carbide structure due to heavy annealing.
 
To archive a hamon you need a starting structure of fine grain and either pearlite or martensite. Normalizing and cycling, and a pre-quench are often part of the HT regime for a hamon blade. If it is highly spheroidized, it will not get a good hamon because it won't convert to the desired structures.
 
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