Salt pot verses Kiln

D

Dennis Paish

Joined
Jan 3, 2007
Messages
302
Greetings,
I have both, but only use the Even heat kiln for my blades. I usually mostly do carbon steel. Space is a huge issue in my shop, and this salt pot sits around collecting dust. What is the pros and cons having both?

Regards.

Dennis Paish
 
If you have both, shouldn't you be telling us? Personally I don't want anything to do with salt pots. They're dangerous. If a smart guy like Kevin Cashen can have one blow up in his shop, a guy like me doesn't need to even bother with it.
 
I would use the kiln for normalizing and the salt pot for the thermal cycling and final austenitization, you can't go any better for heat treating carbon steels.
I'm assuming your salt pot is high temp salt.
 
High temp salt to austenitizing carbon steel is the ideal, most precise method as man can get... you need to soak much shorter than other method since the salt will equalize the blade in no time.. plus almost zero decarb.

If you working with stainless/high alloy I'm not so sure if it can go over 1850F without being too danger...

Low temp salt is the best quench media for stainless/high alloy. The cooling rate is very fast from Ac3 to Ms so you have almost zero issue with Cr23C6 precipitation at grain boundaries... You take the blade out at behind Ms let it cool slowly in the air and let the martensite form evenly, result as higher percentage of martensite and much less RA.... much less distortion problem too. What's not to love?
 
Good point, and also many oil hardening carbon steels would benefit of marquenching in low-temp salt for the same reasons.
You can also correct quench warps very easily out of the LT salts!!
 
Only downside of low temp salt quench/marquehcning is the cooling rate wouldn't fast enough to pass the pearlite nose on shallow hardening steel like 1095, W2 or White steel series.
 
i don't know, i wouldn't bet the salts were not fast enough... but i am not sure
The real trouble steels for marquenching are those with an high temperature MS, like the hypoeutectoids.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top