Pre heat treated 15n20

JTknives

JTknives

Joined
Jun 11, 2006
Messages
8,651
I have wondered off and on for a little while if any of you would be interested in 15n20 that is heat treated. Being that it is thin .090 most everyone including my self grind edge bevels after heat treating. I have not settled on what a price would be but after getting prodded by another member hear about this I decided to run a test and see how doing this would work out.

The test is 11 strips that are 2"X11"x.090". Thy where heat treated and quenched in parks 50 with an as quenched hardness of 65-65.5 RC. The tricky part is straightening them as thy all took a little warp in the quench. So we are testing out a bulk tempering and straighting which would save a lot of time. I'm thinking a HRC of around 60RC would be good for a general hardness considering how tough this steel is.

So I'm looking for your guys thoughts on this. The only issue I can think of is profiling the blade without over heating. But with a sharp belt and water dipping I don't think it would be a problem. Drilling holes in the tang would not be to bad if you hot drilled. Here are some pictures of the year so far. It's currently in the oven being tempered.
Photo%20Dec%2023%2C%2021%2048%2046.jpg


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I think temper it to 62-63rc should be better since this thin stock are mostly suit for kitchen knife. Although I would rather have an unhardened stock since pre-heat treated stock would be limit at working.
 
Hey Jarod,
Have you tried putting it between 2 aluminum plates after you quench it. I have some friends that use band saw material and that is what they do. I am going to try it when I make some with it.
Merry Christmas,
Doug Adams
Jn. 3:16
 
What austentizing temp are you using? I tested your steel after quenching in DT-48, and got consistent Rc66. I used 1475, 10 min soak.
 
Have you thought of cutting out blanks, maybe a santuko, a petty, and a gyuto? That would solve the profiling hardened steel issue.
 
JT I'm interested. Keep us posted on what's available if you decide to offer this product.

I've read about folks using a carbide bit to drill post HT, but I haven't ever heard how much life they are getting out of the bits. Is hot drilling just spot annealing with a torch?
 
I hit drill with a propane torch next to the drill press. Heat the area of the tang where you want the hole to be red hot and quickly drill that spot while still red. Will drill like butter, once cool reheat and finish drilling through if you did not make it through in the first heat.

I'm heading out to the shop now to play with the 15n20 heat treat. I austenite at 1500° but I'm going to go play with a few different temps and soak times to see if I can increase the as quenched hardness. I have hit 67rc with a water quench but that was to see what the max hardness was I could get. That also was with a long soak, much longer then what I did to these strips.
 
1465 to 1480 seems to work for me. Not much difference in final results in that range. 10 to 15 minutes seems ideal. You can get away with less, but I get really consistent results with 10-15 min.
 
I'm running a 5 coupon test from 1450 to 1490 with a 10min soak. Then run hardness tests on each and see where we are at. I have just ALLWAYS ran 15n20 at 1500° with a few min soak. I kinda put it in the same boat as 1084.
 
I might be interested depending on price. I like 15n20 but doubt my ability to heat treat it in my forge like I can 1024.
 
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