Stress relief/normalization/etc.

[Bo T]

How do you all treat your blades after forging?
Do you do a simple anneal then clean up the blade (cold working) and then do your normalization just before quenching?
Or do you normalize, clean up your blade (cold work), and do a simple stress relief before quenching?
Or???
Thanks.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I do a simple sub-critical annealing (spheroidize) when I am done with the days work. I normalize (cycle down at 1650,1500,1350,1250) the blade before the final quench.