Trugrit heat treat

[dirtyphil]

in sending in some blades that consist of 52100, O-1, and 5160. On the order sheet it asks if you want differential hardening, normalizing, etc. Do any of these steels need these two options for optimal performance or will the regular heat treat suffice. Most blades are B&T types, the O-1 blades are a small neck knife/ skinner and a little 1/4” thick cleaver. Thanks, Phil

 

[DeadboxHero]

Just call Trugrit, have them send your call back to the shop and talk to Jeff Mutz, he is friendly and can explain exactly what he does and why, you can decide from there.

The normalizing is to prepare forged blades for heat treat or to break up heavily spheroidized steels before heat treatment.

The differential harding means he leaves the spine of the blade soft for increased "blade" durability which prevent the blade from just flat out snapping in half if abused.

 

[Rhinoknives1]

in sending in some blades that consist of 52100, O-1, and 5160. On the order sheet it asks if you want differential hardening, normalizing, etc. Do any of these steels need these two options for optimal performance or will the regular heat treat suffice. Most blades are B&T types, the O-1 blades are a small neck knife/ skinner and a little 1/4” thick cleaver. Thanks, Phil

Generally! There is that word again Larger knives can benefit from a differential hardening ... Smaller B&T & Necker’s not as much. YMMV

 

[joedhiggins]

I haven't used TG's HT service, but if you do become interested in the differential HT for purposes other than hamon formation, look into differential tempering as well. I would recommend you normalize all blades prior to HT unless you know very specifically that the specific steel you are going to use is fully ready for hardening.