on a no BS 52100 heat treat

butcher_block

butcher_block

Joined
Dec 6, 2004
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in goggled it but im gettign 2 types of heat treat (bearings and some kind of triple quench :D )
seems 1550 and oil quench but the thing im not gettign is as quenched the steel is to be 66-67Rc but even at the temper temps called for its down to 60

is that right this is for razors that im working on not choppers so a point or 2 extra not a big deal

also dont give me the 3x quench stuff please. i would rather soak the steel for 30 min and just do it once
 
its 5/32 stock
and i know edge thickness will be much thicker then the steel i foil packet and treat

so far as quench speed how fast/slow are we talking Vs O1, 1084
 
Butch does this help
52100a-1.jpg
 
that looks like good info
if i read that right 62 hardness should be no problem then at like 350-375 ish (i ll have to make a few trips to the tester for hardness)
 
If you harden from 1500 F instead of 1550 F you'll drop the amount of retained austenite and get higher hardness.Soak 15-20 min. Temper 350 F if for razors ,400 F for knives.
 
thanks mete
so this is one of the steels that if i played with cryo i could maybe make better
im sticking to what you had said on this for now tho
cryo can wait till later when i am make a bunch of test knives to break (and see if i like the steel and can order the sheet thickness i want to use)
 
butcher_block said:
so far as quench speed how fast/slow are we talking Vs O1, 1084
Click to expand...

Butch, did you get an answer regarding oil quenching speed? I did not see it in the thread. I'm interested in this as well. Does anyone have a recommendation?

Thanks, Eric
 
Butch I have used texaco type a almost exclusively on 52100 for the last eight years. I have tried different oils and even water but could not notice any improvement over the type A. Of the half dozen or so razors that I have made from this steel the best ones were hardened and tempered at full thickness and then ground hard.
 
Butcher_block I was taking a bit of a break from the forum arena but your pragmatic appeal and approach to this topic inspired me to add whatever I could to help.

52100 is all about the carbide, when you have at least .3% extra carbon you don’t have much choice. If you want to maximize the stuff you need to pay attention to those carbides. In this area your heat treatments before hardening will be at least as important as your final heat and quench. In normalizing you want to go hot and put all of that carbide into solution and then cool quick enough not to have it go out of solution in a coarse form and certainly not in the grain boundaries. So the vermiculite, wood ash or leaving in the cooling forge is out of the question. Also be certain to get it hot the first time and then air cool quickly, in normalizing. Reheat a couple more times going cooler as you go. The best phases to go to the final heat treat with would be upper bainite, very fine pearlite or very fine spheroids with martensite as a last resort. Coarse pearlite or large spheroidal carbides would not be desirable.

If you do things correctly you can leave the extra carbide very finely dispersed throughout the matrix to give very good abrasion resistance with no embrittlement problems. On heating for the quench the high end will put much of those fine carbides back into solution and, as mete pointed out, result in retained austenite. I have done soak temperature experiments that show Rockwell hardness climbing steadily with every 20F less from the upper range until you drop below 1475F and then undersoaking occurs. I have managed to get 67HRC from 52100 but the strain and embrittlement becomes a problem.

If you manage to put around .7%- .8% carbon into solution for the quench and leave the rest as very fine carbide, you will achieve maximum hardness with excellent abrasion resistance and little embrittlement, but this will be determined mostly by your prior treatments. Very little can be done with carbides in the final heat if they were not ideal before. With the alloying present you can also increase this effect a bit with tempering as secondary carbides are formed. It is this factor that is responsible for all the unorthodox things that many smiths come up with for this steel, which really ammount to so many forms of what I call "carbide games".
 
Kevin R. Cashen said:
52100 is all about the carbide, when you have at least .3% extra carbon you don’t have much choice. If you want to maximize the stuff you need to pay attention to those carbides. In this area your heat treatments before hardening will be at least as important as your final heat and quench. In normalizing you want to go hot and put all of that carbide into solution and then cool quick enough not to have it go out of solution in a coarse form and certainly not in the grain boundaries. So the vermiculite, wood ash or leaving in the cooling forge is out of the question. Also be certain to get it hot the first time and then air cool quickly, in normalizing. Reheat a couple more times going cooler as you go. The best phases to go to the final heat treat with would be upper bainite, very fine pearlite or very fine spheroids with martensite as a last resort. Coarse pearlite or large spheroidal carbides would not be desirable.

If you do things correctly you can leave the extra carbide very finely dispersed throughout the matrix to give very good abrasion resistance with no embrittlement problems. On heating for the quench the high end will put much of those fine carbides back into solution and, as mete pointed out, result in retained austenite. I have done soak temperature experiments that show Rockwell hardness climbing steadily with every 20F less from the upper range until you drop below 1475F and then undersoaking occurs. I have managed to get 67HRC from 52100 but the strain and embrittlement becomes a problem.

If you manage to put around .7%- .8% carbon into solution for the quench and leave the rest as very fine carbide, you will achieve maximum hardness with excellent abrasion resistance and little embrittlement, but this will be determined mostly by your prior treatments. Very little can be done with carbides in the final heat if they were not ideal before. With the alloying present you can also increase this effect a bit with tempering as secondary carbides are formed. It is this factor that is responsible for all the unorthodox things that many smiths come up with for this steel, which really ammount to so many forms of what I call "carbide games".
Click to expand...



Great post :thumbup:
 
great much more good info to play with

this will be stock removal so should i still need all the steps
seems like a dumb ? but since im not forging it this time around i had to ask

i have some that i am tring to forge down (wow its slow to move)

again thanks to all and if there's more to read im all for ir as i like to learn as much as i can about the steel im using (its the kind of info i was googling for )
 
What are you starting with, do you know ? From the mill you should be getting spheroidized annealed .But is it fine or coarse ? Fine will be better but it's more likely coarse.If coarse then Kevin's info is important.
The difference between fine and coarse carbides is well illustrated by comparing things like 154CM and CPM154. As I remember you do prefer the CPM version !!
For your razor it's even more important - fine carbides , low retained austenite give better hardness and the razor will take a finer edge.When it's all done why not compare a 52100 and a CPM154 razors and let use know which is better !
 
sounds like a challenge
lucky for me im building a razor that can swap blades
and have planned in the works
O1
cpm3v
cpmD2
cpm154
cpm m4

i guess i can add 52100 1080FG :D

i think i even might have some M2 here at the house
there will not be a cpm10v even tho i have it here
 
Kevin thanks for another post that really explains things.

But, of course that brings some things up to. I have a lot of D2 and love the stuff. I have never forged it. But, having a way high carbon content I am sure that the same applies. The quality of the annealing process would dictate just how well the extra carbon is dispersed and have a major effect on toughness. Got any special D2 instructions hidden away.
 
is that not the funny thing. answer one question and make many more because of it

i love this place these people and this "work"
 
ib2v4u said:
Kevin thanks for another post that really explains things.

But, of course that brings some things up to. I have a lot of D2 and love the stuff. I have never forged it. But, having a way high carbon content I am sure that the same applies. The quality of the annealing process would dictate just how well the extra carbon is dispersed and have a major effect on toughness. Got any special D2 instructions hidden away.
Click to expand...

I have done almsot no work with D2 to gain many insights but all of the carbide issues are there only multiplied to greater levels due to the abundance of carbide forming elements. Temps will have to go much higher to put things into solution and the carbides will lean more towards the coarse side, and segregation will be a bigger issue since the alloying will tend to pull the carbides around more. 5160 is a rather simple alloy in comparison.
 
Would an educated guess be that one could take the D2 to say 2000 and air cool, air cool then 1900 cool 1850 and cool, then 1800 then 1750 and say 1700 and then to the 1850 soak and plate quench with all the steps in a 309 foil packet. I realize alloy content changes a lot but, would that process somewhat follow the 51200 process at a higher temp to get the carbon in solution and get more finally dispersed carbides. Or should I leave well enough alone and just use it in the state it came from the supplier in Austria. I guess I could take 2 pieces machined to be identical and do one as is and use the above process ( or another suggested one) on the other and start loading them up and see which snaps first and how much more the other takes to follow suit. Thanks for the information you have passed along even if you have none for this. Jim
 
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well just started sawing into it and i left a tab to brake off. it looks way more coarse then im use to (looks like big bad grains on a poor heat treated blade)

and it seems to work way harder then im use to even seeing how i have had 10v and M4 (cpm) in the shop

i ll be doing the full normalizing and what not to get me back in the game
again thanks to all for options
 
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