Surprising W-2 various quench medium hardness test results: Brine, Houghto-Quench k,

Out of curiosity, do you have a chemical analysis of your steels, particularly the W2?
 
I am just trying to make a good knife and I was hoping I could help others by divulging my methods but it seems like this thread has devolved into a nitpicking crusade to find fault with my methods. I think my methods are sound and I think they’re getting me to my destination but when I read some of these posts I wonder what your motivations are.

Like Jens Schuetz stating that the scientific method doesn’t only mean one variable. All you are doing is eliminating multiple variables that have no influence to ultimately get to the point where you have one variable which does which is where I am now. By your own words, “Do 2 of them and the remaining one.”

If you want to nitpick my methods and argue meaningless minutia go right ahead but I’m going to ignore those kind of post from now on and the people that really like me just want to make a better knife I will respond to.
 
Jeff the Millwright said:
I am just trying to make a good knife and I was hoping I could help others by divulging my methods but it seems like this thread has devolved into a nitpicking crusade to find fault with my methods. I think my methods are sound and I think they’re getting me to my destination but when I read some of these posts I wonder what your motivations are.

Like Jens Schuetz stating that the scientific method doesn’t only mean one variable. All you are doing is eliminating multiple variables that have no influence to ultimately get to the point where you have one variable which is where I am now. By your own words, “Do 2 of them and the remaining one.”

If you want to nitpick my methods and argue meaningless minutia go right ahead but I’m going to ignore those kind of post from now on and the people that really like me just want to make a better knife I will respond to.
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You just want to help everybody here which is amazing and will be useful for anybody facing similar problems. Thank you!
I just wanted to help you too either for this experiment or future ones. Is it really minute to cut the number of experiments needed in half?

I was just adding to what you thought and if you write about your problems with heat treatment you aren't nitpicking on the people for which it works either.

Sorry if mine came across as such.
 
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So the at eliminates the steel. W2 has a range of carbon contents that can be specified when ordering. If you didn't know the chemistry, you would just be at the mercy of whoever ordered the heat, and maybe not realize it.
 
No problem Jens and I am aware that you really weren’t the source of my frustration but the simply straw that broke the camel’s back, LOL.

Issues like the quench volume just won’t die and I can’t seem to make it clear that variables like that don’t matter because I’m using a standard procedure. Obviously I can’t worry if people get what I’m saying or not. I have tried to get my point cross ad nauseum and people at this point after reading my explanations either get it or don’t and I will have to live with that.
 
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For any new makers watching the thread, can you elaborate on why you would expect full (or near it) hardness from a 9 ish second oil when you only have less than a second to cool the steel?
 
me2 said:
For any new makers watching the thread, can you elaborate on why you would expect full (or near it) hardness from a 9 ish second oil when you only have less than a second to cool the steel?
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For me I use my brine test as my control that I consider full hardening and that is in the 66 range. Other makers like Don Hansen III who is really a definitive authority is getting 67.5 to 68.5 with W-2 and Parks as he stated in this thread. I’m sure Don has mastered all aspects such as thermal cycling etc. so I don’t expect to be getting his numbers at this point or probably ever, LOL. So for me using bar stock from Aldo’s without any treatment anything over 65 I consider fully hardened.

Sorry on rereading I realized I did not understand your question. There really isn’t a nine second oil. Parks 50 and Houghto-Quench® K are considered 7 to 9 second oils and they are the type needed for hyper eutectoid steels like 1095 and W-2.

So I expected Houghto-Quench® K to be able to quench both these steels to full hardness and so far my test have revealed that it was only able to do 1095 and failed to do W-2 which is surprising because Parks from everybody’s experience on here will do both.

I had some 9 to 11 second oil that I was given by a local heat treat company and I included that in my experiment just to see what it would do because some people use that type of oil with these fast quenching steels and I wanted to see just out of curiosity what the result would be and from my experiments I saw they are pretty dismal.
 
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bluntcut said:
9s oil = cool a work piece thickness to 100-200F. It will works if quenchant able to cool fast enough to avoid the pearlite nose and continuous cooling fast enough to avoid bainitic transformation. So for a very thin W2 cross section (blade bevel), even warm canola can fully harden it because it met both condition above. Sure, spine and thicker section won't fully harden in this case.
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In my experiment canola only got a .207" thick piece of W-2 to Rockwell 40. I find it extremely hard to believe that a thinner cross-section could be fully hardened. I have work to do; will be back tonight.
 
Jeff the Millwright said:
That is why I always do a brine test because I consider that my control which I compare my deviation against. So even if the volume of oil that I use isn’t giving full hardening it doesn’t matter because that same handicap applies to my control so it basically is nullified.
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Maybe the quench volume does matter... I don't know. However, volume may make a difference depending on the quench medium. A pint of oil may not have the same effect as a pint of water due to the volume.

Another thing you keep mentioning is that agitation doesn't matter, as you only have 1/2 second. As I understand it, the quench medium is what helps you cool fast enough to get under that 1/2 second pearlite nose. However, the steel is still transforming after that 1/2 second. Thats why you don't take the steel out of the quench after only 1/2 a second. Also, agitating the steel helps ensure there is no vapor jacket around it.
 
S.Alexander said:
Maybe the quench volume does matter... I don't know. However, volume may make a difference depending on the quench medium. A pint of oil may not have the same effect as a pint of water due to the volume.

Another thing you keep mentioning is that agitation doesn't matter, as you only have 1/2 second. As I understand it, the quench medium is what helps you cool fast enough to get under that 1/2 second pearlite nose. However, the steel is still transforming after that 1/2 second. Thats why you don't take the steel out of the quench after only 1/2 a second. Also, agitating the steel helps ensure there is no vapor jacket around it.
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Okay I see this issue will not die so today despite having much better things to do I am going to quench one sample in a cup of water and another sample in a pail of water.

And yes S. Alexander I concur that there may be a miniscule possibility that a pint of oil may not have the same effect as a pint of water due to volume but in my test a pint of Houghto-Quench® K did have the same hardening effect as a pint of Brine on 1095. So the only conclusion you could draw is that one pint of brine does not have the same affect as one pint of Houghto-Quench® K only with certain steels which I think nullifies your argument.

And again you are missing my main point and that is that agitation is irrelevant because it wasn’t used in my brine test which is my standard and control to compare others against. If I don’t need to agitate with brine to get 65 I shouldn’t have to agitate with oil to get 65 if it is a comparable medium. I don’t understand why this point is being ignored but I am not going to revisit it again as I said people either understand what I am saying or they don’t.

The point of my test is to compare different quench mediums under the same conditions which don’t have to be ideal conditions i.e. perfect agitation, perfect sized vessel, perfect Aus. Temperature etc. All I need is the same conditions for all my quench tests it doesn’t matter if they’re the perfect conditions be a cause I am comparing relative performance not seeking perfect performance.
 
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bluntcut said:
It's a heat transfer (thermal jacket & viscosity are 2 key factors) issue, not HQK vs P50.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/conductive-heat-transfer-d_428.html
http://heatbath.com/heat-treating-products-2/oil-based-quenchants/
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/dynamic-absolute-kinematic-viscosity-d_412.html
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/viscosity-converter-d_413.html

For thick W2: Rough surface + higher viscosity oil(than brine/water) = persistent thermal jacket lowered dT = hit pearlite.
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I have been down the rabbit hole before with your technobabble and if you think you can get full hardness with canola oil on W-2 more power to you but I won’t buy one of your knives, LOL.
 
S.Alexander said:
It seems like you just want to argue.

I'll leave you this to read:
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-14392005000400018
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The last thing I wanted to be out here is argumentative but I can’t seem to make people understand that this is a comparative test of quenching agents with a standardized procedure and I am not looking to perfect the process for maximum hardness but simply to have a consistent process with the only variable being different quenching agents.

And post after post are trying to get me to introduce a new variable to increase my hardness when that isn’t the point. The point is to compare different quenching agents with the same procedure and whether it’s perfect or not it is consistent and that's what matters and I can’t seem to make that point.

Basically I think I have said all I can say and if I get some parks 50 sent to me I will post those results in comparison to brine and Houghto-Quench® K on both 1095 and W-2 otherwise I don’t see the point of going around in circles anymore.
 
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