tempering

Ice-man28

Ice-man28

Joined
Dec 14, 2008
Messages
98
This may have been already asked, but where do you go look for tempering instructions for a given steel?:o
 
Ice-man,
David Boye's book on making knives has a small section in back on heat treating different steels common to custom knives. It's not exhaustive by any means but it covers several steels.
I'm sure some of the makers here know of something on the web ( I know I've seen a couple but can't remember where).
Later,
Iz
 
One of the best things a smith can do for his self knowledge and his HT learning, is to find a copy of "Heat Treaters Guide - Practices and Procedures for Irons and Steels" ,by the ASM. It is the bible ( well, its good anyway) on steel HT. Reading all the preliminary info ( first 135 pages) in the book will teach you a lot. It is not cheap, but worth every dollar.

Other sources are the ones listed in the above posts, and the steel seller sites, like Crucible and Admiral.
http://www.admiralsteel.com/
http://www.crucibleservice.com/index.cfm

Stacy
 
You will not find much data on precise Rockwell numbers for a given hardness, or at least nothing concrete and reliable since it is a bit of a range that is very dependent on your individual heat treatment. For example an alloy steel that is heated to a set temperature and then quenched only after a good soaking time will require a much higher tempering for the same hardness as the same steel that was quickly heated and then immediately quenched. Prior heat treatments before the final hardening also have a heavy effect in this one. This is why I still Rockwell and walk in my tempering on every blade I do, slight variations in each knife allows for a little too much play for my control freak mind.
 
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