what good is 52100

no no its not that simple its a many step system
and you can do that HT in a kiln if you want a hardened blade not jsut a hardened edge

picking a steel and picking a HT is all about knowing what you want the blade to do
 
i woudl like to point out that for a "simple" carbon steel its my go to for razors i mostly deal with higher alloys but for the finest edge its hard to beat
 
Maybe he didn't have the equipment to do a good HT on it? You can't just heat it red and dunk it in the dog's water bowl and expect the same kind of results that a non eutectoid steel would give.
 
He ran a rat cage to stoke a 3' by 4' oven...... OS doesn't even begin to describe this guy haha..... Learned alot from him and he was the first to help me out so i take hid knowledge to heart & expand what I was given
 
yup from what I understand with this steel you have to get the heat treat just right or the blade may not live up to the full potential of the steel.
 
Microcracks can form along the grain boundaries. This can come back to bite you in the butt later on.
 
bladsmth said:
11 second oil is fine....52100 can even be plate cooled or air cooled in thin sections.

Here is an exerpt from an earlier post on the subject:

52100 is one of those steels that gets a lot of discussion. It can make a great knife, but the HT for it is not simple. It can make an OK knife with simpler procedures. There are greatly differing oppinions on the HT, and I will leave those folks to their own methods.
I will tell you the metallurgical way to do the HT for 52100:
The steel has 1% carbon and 1.4% chromium. This means that it is hyper-eutectiod steel with a fair amount of alloy to form chromium carbides. You will have to do the HT in such a way as to allow those elements to form the proper structures. To do this you will need a HT oven or forge that can be held at a controlled temperature for ten minutes, and a quench oil that will harden the blade. The oil should be a medium speed commercial quench oil, but Canola will do if nothing else is available. Forget about motor oil and ATF, etc.
Click to expand...
so commercial 10-12 second quenching oil should be ok? I was assembling mystery quench(atf+hydraulic fluid+ but cant find fry oil) when i read this.
 
Marco3: Selection of poor quality steel, inadequate methods such as forging too hot, or too cold, poor forging technique. Incomplete normalizing of the steel. Leaving deep scratches in the blade before heat treat, unnecessary thermal shocks to a blade, rapid cooling from tempering cycle.

These are just a few, there are more.
 
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