Sparking = overheat?

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fateofone

Joined
Sep 21, 2016
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Hey, I'm a little confused. I have a 5160 blade I've been working on, and I read somewhere that sparking means it overheated. The issue is that my blade was sparking when I pulled it out of the forge, but it hadn't lost it's magnetism. So I'm a little confused why that means overheated.
 
Its important to know what sparking means. If you pull the piece out and it is nearly white hot, sparkling like a sparkler you played with as a kid, and is slightly deformed, yes it is overheated. It wont lose its magnetism forever, just when it is above critical temp, so if you tested its magnetism after it cooled down that is a bad test. If it was truly hot out of the forge, it was non magnetic.
 
As much as I hate to suggest learning from YouTube, you can see plenty of examples of folks burning steel.
Btw, I assume you are burning coal ? Dont mistake sparks from fuel as sparks from steel.
 
It definitely wasn't white but more of a orange. And what I mean by sparks are some little sparks popping off the metal where it's touched etc. And I just mean barely touched. But not sparks like a sparkler.
 
If your seeing sparks flying from the steel your burning the carbon out and making for massive grain structure. I like to watch the colors of the steel and my smithy is shaded so I can see the colors better, you can burn steel up in bright sun light trying to get to a red/orange heat your used to seeing in the dark.
 
Down here in Texas we have a lot of sun. I learned very fast that I cannot see the "red" color the steel becomes around 1400*F when I pull it out of the forge. Believe it or not, I can just barely see a difference in the steel while it is still in the forge therefore I rely alot on the magnet. My next heat treat I am going to do at night time so I can see the colors better. If you did it outside and you say it was orange then I bet in the shade it would have been bright yellow around 2000*.
 
Will52100 said:
If your seeing sparks flying from the steel your burning the carbon out and making for massive grain structure. I like to watch the colors of the steel and my smithy is shaded so I can see the colors better, you can burn steel up in bright sun light trying to get to a red/orange heat your used to seeing in the dark.
Click to expand...

It was at night. I did just watch a video of someone demonstrating burning the blade. It literally sparked like a sparkler when the guy pulled it out. When I say sparking, I mean a little sparks when it's touched, as well as a spark flying off here and there. It was nothing like that one he showed. So I'm thinking I'm good.
 
If you are used to the color of non-magnetic, you can't miss overheated steel. It will be alarmingly bright, and the heavy scale caused by the excessive heat can come off in a pretty dramatic shower of sparks when it is struck.

If you see a few little sparks when you pull the steel out of the forge, it's just normal "snowflakes" of scale popping off.

Edited to add- I'm obviously a really slow typist...
 
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