O1 sweats during heat treat?

F

F. Allin Kahrl

Joined
Aug 20, 2004
Messages
211
Talking with a friend about how he HTs his O1 blades. Turns out that instead of gauging by color or magnetism, he's doing it based on the sweat (he calls it flux) that seems to emerge from the steel at Curie point. He lets the liquid start to pool, and figures he's overcooked if the pools all run together.

We're both curious what this liquid is. It leaves bronze-colored spots on the steel when it cools. I'm inclined to tell him he should be using a magnet, but we both wonder if this is actually an effective way of gauging.

Does anybody know?

-Allin
 
I don't think it's scaling or phase-change shadows. It really does behave like a liquid. The marks it leaves behind look like this:

lappedflux.jpg


Pretty strange, eh?
 
I've never seen that before. Of course there's lots of things I've never seen. I'd be finding a new supplier for 01 myself.
 
Ive had something similar to that. Is there thickness change where the drops occured? My best guess was some of the alloys in the steel started to melt out but i didnt think I could get a camp fire that hot. Im interested to know if anyone has an answer for what happened.
 
Yeah are those HUGE grains? Break a piece and see what the cross section looks like....

Ive never, ever seen liquid on my blades at normal temps in 0-1....tell him to use a magnet...he may be basing his HT temp on extreme grain growth or some product of extreme overheating rather than the actual right temp...

These are all guesses unless we know at approximately what temp he is working....

Steel color when he sees these pools? Red, orange, yellow?
 
I've had that blistering effect before with O1. I'm pretty sure that its caused by overheating, and I think it also has to do with the quality of the steel when you get it.
Some of the steel I've had in the same batches showed alot of what I guess you could call alloy banding. Or at least a definite grain pattern in the steel from when it was rolled out. Forging seemed to eliminate it, and normalizing multiple times seemed to help also.
The only time I've ever really noticed that blistering like that is from overheating though. I'd get a magnet out and try to get a better idea of what temp you want to be working at. I know that color is subjective, and will depend on who's looking at it and what kind of lighting they're in, but I've always found that non magnetic comes alot sooner than you would think. Its easy to let yourself take it on a few hundred degrees more to that nice bright orange heat. Especially when you're worried about getting the whole peice up to temp and heated evenly.
 
I was going to say mokume too :D
ive H/t/ed a lot of o1 in the last33 + years and that's a differant sumtumorrather :)
 
Jeez! I don't have a clue! What I do know is that the 2nd blob from the left, in the top row, looks like a polar bear biting the head off of a small fat person.
Other than that.......
 
Robert according to the time stamp on your post it's past your bedtime, your halucinating!:D (again!)
 
rhrocker said:
Jeez! I don't have a clue! What I do know is that the 2nd blob from the left, in the top row, looks like a polar bear biting the head off of a small fat person.
Other than that.......
Click to expand...

Whoa! I wasn't going to say anything but I saw it too!

Craig
 
rhrocker said:
Jeez! I don't have a clue! What I do know is that the 2nd blob from the left, in the top row, looks like a polar bear biting the head off of a small fat person.
Other than that.......
Click to expand...

C L Wilkins said:
Whoa! I wasn't going to say anything but I saw it too!

Craig
Click to expand...

To me it looks a little like my cat at his bowl , tucked up in a little ball , just like he's sitting there munching away...... JMHO :)
 
i think it looks like a duck with a ball stuck on the end of it's bill.
 
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