How to Heat Treat K390

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K390 Steel and Heat Treating Background

I already have a video and article about the history and properties of K390, which you can see here. K390 is a powder metallurgy non-stainless steel with high wear resistance due to very high vanadium, 9%. It is in a similar category to CPM-10V and Vanadis 8.

Since that article and video were published, new samples were heat treated by Svetlozar Chaushev; funding and logistical help was provided by K390 enthusiasts Manuel Meyer and Othman Fahim. I finished machining the samples and tested them for hardness and toughness. The main additions to the previous information we had is a comparison of tempering temperatures. My samples were tempered at 400°F (205°C) but these new ones were tempered at 500°F (260°C) or 1000°F (538°C). Some steels that we have tested in the past showed a reduction in toughness by tempering at 500 rather than 400°F, despite the reduction in hardness. An example of this behavior was seen with CPM S35VN. This is referred to as tempered martensite embrittlement. However, the temperature range of tempered martensite embrittlement is different for different steels and can be suppressed to higher temperatures than 500°F, so it is worthwhile to test.

Datasheets for many non-stainless tool steels recommend a “high temper” in the range of 1000-1050°F. This high temper gives the steel more heat resistance so that it doesn’t lose hardness during grinding, applying coatings, or high temperature operation. High temperature tempering also helps with reducing retained austenite even without cryo. However, in previous comparisons we have made between tempering at 400 and 1000°F we found higher toughness with the 400°F temper. You can read about these comparisons in articles about heat treating CPM CruWear/Z-Wear and CPM-10V.

Heat Treating Experiments

Below is a table of the heat treating experiments that were performed:

The time at the high austenitizing temperature was fixed at 20 minutes for the tests that I did (bottom of the table), but Chaushev used 15 minutes for 2050°F/1120°C and 10 minutes for 2100-2150°F (1150-1175°C). The K390 datasheet recommends 20-30 minutes for 1030-1150°C (1885-2100°F) and 10 minutes for 1180°C (2150°F). Shorter hold times are used at high temperature because carbides dissolve more rapidly at high temperature, and grain growth can be a concern. Chaushev used an oil quench while I did a plate quench in my tests; both are relatively fast quenching methods.

Hardness

I combined the hardness data from the toughness coupons with some small hardness coupons I heat treated a couple years ago with a 300°F temper. Perhaps the two different datasets helps explain why the hardness of the 300 and 400°F specimens are quite close together, only about 0.5 Rc where I would normally expect about 1 Rc. Or maybe K390 just has good tempering resistance at that low temperature range, as evidenced by there only being a ~0.5 Rc difference between 400 and 500°F when austenitizing at 1950 and 2100°F. Different “heats” of steel can have somewhat different ranges of carbon and other alloying elements which can lead to small differences in hardness, and my two different heat treatment studies were with two different bars that would likely have been different heats. You can also see in the chart that the 1000°F leads to significantly lower hardness for a given austenitizing temperature.

K390 tempering chart from the datasheet

I pulled hardness points off the datasheet and compared against the results of these newly heat treated coupons and found that we had higher hardness than the datasheet showed:

With the datasheet they used a nitrogen quench with 5 bar of pressure, which is likely slower than the quench Chaushev performed. The datasheet also did not use cryo which may explain the hardness difference. The difference in hardness increased with austenitizing temperature, which would be expected from cryo because there would be more retained austenite after quenching from high austenitizing temperatures.

Toughness

Below shows the resulting toughness values for different austenitizing and tempering temperature combinations:

400-500°F tempering led to similar toughness with a small edge given to the 500°F temper, especially at the lower austenitizing temperature of ~1800°F (980°C). The 1000°F temper led to similar toughness for a given austenitizing temperature, though there was a significant drop in toughness up to the 2150°F austenitize. This is despite the reduced holding time of 10 minutes used with 2150°F. With the 400-500°F temper, there was a significant drop in toughness from 1800 to 1950°F, but the toughness stayed basically flat between 1950 and 2100°F. So for high toughness heat treatments, sticking to a relatively low temperature of 1800°F or perhaps even lower leads to the best toughness. If going to higher hardness it appears best to go up even higher than 1950°F for more hardness as the toughness largely didn’t change up to 2100°F.

We must remember, however, that the 1000°F temper led to lower hardness for a given austenitizing temperature, so it can be better to plot toughness against hardness instead so that we can see which heat treatments led to the best balance of hardness and toughness:

The 400-500°F tempering led to a similar hardness-toughness balance (blue dots and line), while the 1000°F temper led to a lower hardness-toughness balance. So we found a similar result to the prior comparisons we have made between low and high tempering with CPM-CruWear and CPM-10V where a low temper at 400°F led to better toughness for a given hardness.

Summary and Conclusions

The low tempering temperature from 400-500°F (205-260°C) led to superior toughness to using a high temperature temper from 1000°F (538°C). Given that the high temperature range such as 1000°F also leads to a reduction in corrosion resistance I think it is safe to say that 400-500°F is preferred. No evidence of tempered martensite embrittlement was observed by tempering at 500°F and doing so can give somewhat improved toughness at the cost of 0.5-1 Rc. Good toughness was observed across the range of 1800-2150°F austenitizing (980-1175°C).

How to heat treat K390:

Austenitize for 20 minutes at 1800-2100°F (980-1150°C). Use 10 minutes for 2150°F/1175°C. Large pieces of steel may need a longer soak time.

K390 should be relatively insensitive to quenching, especially with the thin cross section of knives. However, a plate quench or rapid gas quench would be recommended.

We didn’t test without cryo treatments, the maximum recommended austenitizing temperature is likely lower without cryo (when using the recommended 400-500°F temper).

Temper at 400-500°F.

Set the desired hardness by selecting the appropriate combination of austenitizing and tempering temperature using the chart earlier in this article. Of course your batch of K390 and your furnace, cooling rate, etc. may yield slightly different results.