Overheating Annealed Steel?

It might be helpful to point out that having no effect and doing no damage are not the same when talking about overheating during grinding.
 
This is the OP's question:

"I was wondering whether annealed steel could overheat enough during grinding to ruin the structure of the steel. Will hardening and tempering remove any problems from prior damage (if any at all)? "

It concerns damage and repairing any possible damage with proper HT. I think Ed and I have pretty well covered that .
As to the semantics of Damage vs Effect, melting an ice cube has an effect, but doesn't damage the water. If you re-freeze it, it is the same as before. The same goes for a blade overheated in grinding. After HT the steel will be the same quality as before.
 
One aspect to remember for the stock removal folks: You never know the condition of the steel you purchase, uneven grinding can cause warp (stress) in some steels in ? condition. There is no way you can predict the condition of the steel you start with unless you do some special thermal cycles, still it is a variable.

For example: as a youth I made a swamped octagon barrel for a black powder rifle by draw filing a round barrel. I fully filed the first flat and noted the barrel had warped, turned it over and filed the opposing flat and it warped again, same for each flat. when finished I could not see down through the bore of the barrel. I was a long time straightening the barrel. I have never forgotten that experience!

Since that time when I grind a blade or grind steel, I always remove stock evenly from one side then to the other. Same thought when forging, forge evenly - one side then the other alternating uniformly.

me2 you may be correct, I would not sell one of my experimental test blades that had been overheated to the excessive degree I have described during the grinding operation.
 
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ME2: You bring out as well as illustrate through the questions you asked that no matter how simple an experiment may appear to be there is always the possibility of many variables we are not aware of.

What I should have said at the start was that there were no MEASURABLE detrimental influences to the steel that we could determine.
 
Ed Fowler said:
One aspect to remember for the stock removal folks: You never know the condition of the steel you purchase, uneven grinding can cause warp (stress) in some steels in ? condition.
Click to expand...

It seems to me that when I delve into doing my own HT, the first things I should learn are properly annealing my steel before I grind it, and how to stress-relieve/normalize it when grinding is complete.
 
it can change the structure and damage your annealed blade depends on the degree of temperature, time and steel type. but as knifemaking, i don't think its such a big problem. just to remember cooling your blade often while doing the grind, and relief the stress when you done grinding.

i once give my friend a ni-co alloy bar to make a blade. he only grinded one side at a time, and the blade almost wrapped into an unblievealbe half circle. also shit like Ni reduce the Thermal Conductivity, it cause the blade one side reach 500c, but other side is still below 200c something.
 
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