w1 quirks?

[mushroomgrey]

Hi.
just got a whole lot of W1 and i would like to know roughly what i should watch out for while forging and heat treating. are there any do's and dont's when it comes to working and treating it?

 

[Troop]

Basically, just treat it like 1095.

 

[Nathan the Machinist]

Yup, that's what I was going to say. W1 is a cleaner more narrow spec 1095.

After forging it will need grain refined, carbides put in the right place, normalized, some soak time at temp, very fast quench (under 900 in under 3/4 second). Because it needs such a fast quench, it benefits from an interrupted quench.

Take a look at Cashen's sticky "Working the three steel types".