Steel Composition question

[navman]

All,

At last year's BLADE I purchased two bars of beautiful ladder pattern Damascus from Gaston Glock. At the show, I asked the guys at the booth what the composition was so I could request an accurate heat treat protocol from Brad at Peters'. I never heard back.

http://www.gastonglockstyle.net/damascus-steel.html/

The billets are the LEOPARD IV tank barrel Damascus. Anyone have any idea what the cutlery steel is that was used in these?

Cheers!

 

[Ian Fifelski]

Found this on their site.

With proper heat treatment, the hardness of this steel is about 63HRC, and is thus harder than glass.
Hardening is done in a vacuum or with inert gas at 850 degrees, with a retention time of up to 5 minutes.
The cooling rate is equivalent to that of an oil hardening. For the conversion of retained austenite, either a freezing process at 90 °C or a tempering process at 140 °C takes place.
Next, a tempering process at 150 °C should be carried out to assure the complete transformation of retained austenite to martensite.

 

[navman]

Saw that as well, the site says that in addition to the tank barrel, the smith used bearing steel and cold work tool steel...pretty vague.

 

[Willie71]

http://balbachdamast.com/fileadmin/downloads/DSC_carbon_EN.pdf

The end result is approximately 0.65-0.75% carbon. Not terrible, but I think being at 0.75-0.85% is desirable.

Edit: that’s for the non-historic Damascus.

 

[navman]

Thanks Warren!

looks like the primary steel is 1.2842 (AISI O2 steel). Blade should perform well. I plan on making some small skinners for retirement gifts.

 

[Willie71]

Thanks Warren!

See my edit. That’s for the non historic Damascus.

 

[tiguy7]

Is that sub-zero quench 90 or -90C?