Testing W2 Hardness Quenched with Parks 50 and 9% Brine Solution.

Good info. I made a little video when I first started out with W2 and quenching in brine. I cracked a couple of blades when I had the furnace cement too thick. Something to keep in mind if you go searching for the elusive hamon.

[video=youtube;VzUemJ0lvAg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzUemJ0lvAg[/video]
 
Thank you Lo/Rez that is a cool video. You are a brave man quenching in Brine especially with clay. I think I will do the cowards route and use Parks 50.

And yes I did try a hamon with W-2 and Kentucky told me from my photographs that my clay was way too thick so I will keep that in mind. I didn’t get an appreciable hamon because I was using Houghto-Quench® K and I don’t think my hardening got over 50 but I am going to try again with Parks 50 and I will keep my clay much thinner thank you.

I actually have to work my real job for the next couple of weeks so I won’t be making any knives or doing any tests; I really hate when paying the bills interferes with my knife making, LOL.:grumpy:
 
Instead of writing it off as a waste, couldn't you just use the K on different steels?
 
me2 said:
Instead of writing it off as a waste, couldn't you just use the K on different steels?
Click to expand...

Well I have been using stainless mostly and decided to do a bit of 1095 and W2 to practice my grinding and used these steels because if I am not using stainless I figured I might as well have a hamon so I really don't at this stage use any steels that I could use it on since I plate quench my stainless.
 
Well I'm just saying you've got it, so you might as well use it. Unless you order steel in bulk, is easier to change steel than$300 worth of oil.

You already know it will harden 1095. Maybe you could try some auto hamon stuff on some of the W2 or 1095. There are also a whole range of steels that have hardenability that is a bit better than 1095. Steels like 15n20, 80CrV, 1084, maybe 1075, and a few others. If you want to try differentially hardened blades that are just edge quenched, these steels and some others would work. If you were to get into heat treatments for refining grain size, you may find it would work well for 5160, 52100, 8670, or even O1. As grain size gets smaller, hardenability goes down, so these types steels my need the faster speed of the K vs the slower oils that usually work.
 
I appreciate the suggestions me2 but I really don’t want to change steels right now because I wanted to produce some hamons and W2 is the best for that. And I really want to nail down the heat treat and hamon before I start jumping around to other steels. I would rather just work with a few steels and learn to do them very well than do a lot and not really master them.

But I was planning to use 52100 in the future and see if it really does produce an exceptionally fine sharp edge as suggested. But unfortunately I have some 9 to 11 second oil that would probably do that just fine. You are right I may find a use for the Houghto-Quench® K someday but I have accepted I have to buy some Parks 50 and I am okay with that.
 
I keep my parks 50 tightly closed in the five gallon can I bought it in a long time ago. It's still good. I don't know what it's shelf life is, but as I said, it still works just fine.
 
52100 and W2 perform basically identically. I use W2 for the hamon, and 52100 for through hardened blades. Edge holding, stability, and fine grain are basically the same. I can't tell any difference between them, other than the hamon.
 
I know you said you don't want to change steel but low mn 1075 from Aldo will give you just as nice of a hamon as W2.

-Jeff


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Thanks David, it’s nice to know these oils have long shelf lives because I think my Houghto-Quench® K may sit a while, LOL.

And thanks Willie71 for the information about W2 performing as well as 52100. I actually found a thread where you and other members were talking about comparing the two and it was a very informative thread. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1188438-52100-vs-W2

From that thread I am going to use Don Hanson’s heat treat recommendations as it sounds like he has really nailed it down. I will do some experimenting with aust. temperatures because although he recommends 1450°F my oven may not be calibrated the same as his.

I was really surprised to read that he doesn’t put his steel in while the oven is ramping up but instead puts it in once it’s up to temperature and only leaves it in for three minutes. I was surprised it would even fully get up to temperature in that little time unless of course I misread that but I will try it his way and ramping one up and compare the two. I will probably post my results but that won’t be for a while as I am working pretty steady lately.

But since W-2 performs as well as 52100 with the exception of not hardening so deeply I think I will stick with W-2 for the hamon. Like I said I don’t want to be jumping around with different steels so I think I will stick with W-2 till I get the heat treat and hamons right. I have been working a bit of overtime lately so I won’t even notice the money gone for the Parks 50 and I would rather do it right so that’s the route I’m going.

And thanks 705 I appreciate the input about 1075 giving a good hamon but I think I would rather spend the money and go with W-2 and Parks 50 for the better performance of that steel but interesting suggestion anyway.
 
I read through that thread again, and the Rc70.5 result was NEVER duplicated again. I chalked it up to tester error. Don tested a piece of W2 that I sent him, and he got Rc67, compared to Rc68 with his stock.
 
Thanks Willie, it is good to know that Don got 67 with your stock from Aldo’s because that means I am only about one or two points below that using an aust. temperature of 1475°F so hopefully when I drop it down to the 1450°F range I will be in the 67 range.

I thought I read in that thread that Don is normalizing W2 but I assume that is because he is forging. I did a test and tried normalizing W2 and it didn’t increase my hardness but that was with bar stock that wasn’t forged. Would you normalize W2 if you were doing stock removal?

Since posting this I found where Don posted his heat treat method for W2: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1397069-W2
 
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Jeff, if I may jump in and give my personal answer to the question you asked Warren (Willie). When Aldo got in 52100, it was so heavily spheroidized that a traditional quench (stock removal, no normalizing/cycling) would only produce 62-63. Kevin Cashen was brought in to help figure out this problem, and the answer lied in how heavily spheroidized the 52100 was. On Aldo's website, it said 95% spheroidized. Well, so does the 1084, W2, etc. After reports of the W2 not hardening properly without the normalizing routine (to break up the spheroidized cementite), I made it a shop policy to normalize and cycle ALL of Aldo's carbon steels (not O1 or A2). There are obviously posts by others who have no problem hardening W2 without it, there are reports (from good friends of mine) who could not get their W2 to harden unless a 1900°F normalizing was done (not a type-o...nineteen hundred F). ??????????? When you normalize, and then thermal cycle, steel....you know EXACTLY what condition it is in....no guessing about it. It is the only complaint I have with Aldo's steels, but again, I'm not so sure that all of them are so heavily spheroidized. AFAIK, there is no way to tell if a steel is fine spheroidized or coarse spheroidized unless you try to harden it, and have no success reaching max RC....or SEM imaging. So instead of guessing what MIGHT have caused a HT failure....they ALL get normalized and cycled. I say "all".....80CrV2, 1084, 1095, 52100, W2....the ones I use.

So after saying all of that.....if you're getting 66+ without normalizing, seems to me the W2 you have is fine spheroidized, and normalizing probably is not going to increase hardness. If your max reading was 63-65, normalizing may bump it up. One of those things where you just have to figure out what works for you. Even tho all the W2 we are using in bar form came from Aldo, there are at least 4 generations of it that I know of, and generation 2 (or was it 3??) especially had hit and miss issues. The only other W2 around is Don Hanson's stash, which needs forging.

And I cannot recommend enough....a kiln should be AT temp before placing a blade in. I believe you indeed get better, more consistent results, by having the kiln at temp, instead of placing a blade in a cold kiln then ramping. You want your blade to soak AT your target temp for a specified amount of time. If you place the blade in a cold kiln, then ramp up, there is more austenite soak time added, because the austenite will begin to form around 1350F. How long does it take for a kiln to go from 1350F to 1475F? My 110V glass kiln takes 20 minutes or more.....that would be an additional 20 minutes + soaking in an austenite state. I have always heard that grain growth can be a problem if you use that routine, and no wonder!
 
Thank you very much samuraistuart for that very detailed and very informative reply; you really thoroughly addressed my issues.

And yes you are correct the W2 on Aldo’s website does say it is 98% spherodized which is why I tried normalizing and was surprised I didn’t get any increase in hardness so after your reply I assume it was fine spherodized but as you say how can one know what it really is. So I heed your advice and will treat all new steel I get with suspicion and test it to see if normalizing is beneficial.

And again thanks for the advice about not putting my steel in the oven during ramp up because I wasn’t sure about that and I will adjust my procedure accordingly. Thanks again for the great reply!

Because I’m working full time lately I wasn’t going to do any tests but it is the long weekend here in Canada so I get an extra day and I was going to do some un-knife related work in my garage today so I might as well do some tests with aust. temperatures to find out what works best in my oven and I think I will redo the salt melt test to try and calibrate my temps so I can have an idea what they actually are.
 
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I did some tests today to determine the best aust. temp for my oven with W2 and once again I got some perplexing unexpected results. I have been doing my tests at 1475°F and it has been suggested by many that I should lower my temperature to increase my hardness. I expected hardness to increase as I lowered the temp and the maximum would be in the 1450°F range as that is where Don Hansen III has found the sweet spot.

Before I started my tests I did the salt melt test to determine how accurate my thermocouple is. Salt melts at 801°C or 1473.8°F and in my melt test according to my readout on my oven the salt melted at between 1480°F and 1482°F so I figure my oven reads approximately 7°F hotter than it actually is so that should be subtracted from all my readings. Here are my results.

aust%20temp_zpsdlre27ul.jpg


Obviously contrary to my expectations hardness increased as my temperature increased maxing out at 68 at my maximum temperature of 1485°F which in reality is probably closer to 1478°F. I am not presenting this test as solid proof of anything because there were a couple of variables that may have influenced things.

First off I have learned that I should not put my samples in as I ramp up my oven as I have been doing so I soaked them for 10 minutes in the first half of my tests and 15 in the last because I thought perhaps 10 wasn’t enough because of my low readings in the range that I thought would give my highest readings so that is one strike against this test.

Also some pieces had very large variations of hardness in specific the 1480°F test where the hardness varied from 67 to 40 on the same piece. I didn’t coat these pieces with any anti-scale and I noticed the scale was falling off some places on some pieces and not others and I think that may explain the variations. I think I will coat my future test pieces in a thin coating of furnace cement recommended by Stacy. These are some photos of that piece where in one you can see the different sizes of the test divots clearly and in the other I have an arrow pointing to the delineation line from grinding between the hard and soft areas.

photo%201_zpsk54py7vk.jpg


photo%202_zpsdyrcbjqr.jpg


But if I ignore the variations and just use the hardest spots on each sample my tests are telling me that my sweet spot for maximum hardness is in the 1485°F range or with temperature correction of my oven approximately 1478°F which is quite surprising because most people are saying the maximum hardness sweet spot is in the 1450°F to 1460°F.

I don’t claim that this test is definitive in any way and has the deficiencies I outlined but it does tell me I need to do more testing in this area but does suggest that my sweet spot is much higher than what other people find and I wonder if people may have any conjecture about this discrepancy?
 
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Interesting results. Hardenability is affected by the obvious chemistry, but less obviously the condition of the steel will also affect hardenability. The finer the grain refinement, the lower the hardenability. Something interesting/odd is happening with your steel. It migh be worth contacting Kevin Cashen and asking him his thoughts.
 
Yes Willie my results are interesting/odd but before I bother Kevin Cashen I would really like to clean up my test methods and have more definitive results meaning I would like to try to get my hardnesses more consistent on my test pieces using a skim coat of furnace cement as an anti-scale and see if that helps and use consistent soak times on all my pieces so obviously I need to do some retesting first.

But it also crossed my mind overnight that perhaps the salt melt test is simply not that accurate because maybe salt melt point varies with quality and impurities and only pure salt melts at the prescribed point? Perhaps my oven is just out about 20°F and when I think I’m in the 1480°F range I am really only around 1450F to 1460°F where people say the sweet spot is.

I have been reading about ways to calibrate a kiln and apparently there are small cones that come in kits that melt at different temperatures and there is a place not far from me who sells them so maybe I will order some when I get a chance. I am busy working so I probably won’t get around to this for a week or two but then I will at least have a starting point.

I could just use the higher temperature to get my maximum hardness but from what I have read higher aust. temperatures create dreaded grain growth so I would really like to know how hot my oven really is before I start using that temperature.

And as you say grain refinement may be an issue but I did do a test earlier with this W2 going through normalizing cycles and it didn’t make any difference in hardness. I’m not saying that might not be an issue I just don’t think it is but before I get into that I think it’s more prudent to try to figure out how hot my oven really is because that might be the simple solution.
 
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me2 said:
Was this with brine or P50?
Click to expand...

Parks 50.

Even though this test seems like kind of a failure because the temperature I expected to be the sweet spot is 20 to 30°F off I am actually encouraged by the fact that I was able to attain a hardness of 68 because that is pretty much the maximum people are getting.

So if the problem ends up being just that my oven isn’t calibrated properly I will be off to the races and ready to start making knives with maximum hardness with W-2 and Parks 50. I will tweak things down the road like soak time but at least I should be able get back to knife making soon if that is my issue.

Actually I guess using the cones used to calibrate kilns won’t really work for my purpose because they rely not only on temperature but time and temperature so it is hard to actually pinpoint the temperature with them as I found out from more reading.

But I did find a thread by Stacy on how to calibrate an oven using temp sticks that are used in welding etc. Hopefully I should be able to pick some up at work to help solve my issue or as a worst-case scenario I may have to actually buy some, LOL. In that thread someone said table salt can be up to 5% additives so that may be why my melt test shows I am only out by 7 degrees F when it seems like I am really out by 20 to 30 degrees from my test results.
 
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This really drives home the point of testing yourself, in your shop, your equipment. With W2, +/- 10f names a difference, and you go be a sweet spot 30f out from myself and Don. (He's using 1460 now Iirc. ) With these steels, just following a recipe won't cut it. In the end, the reading on the kiln is irrelevant. The final condition of the steel is what's important. Use what your testing says is best.
 
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