Patreon
Thanks to my supporters on Patreon.com/KnifeSteelNerds. Thanks to your support we can do studies like this. Come join us on Patreon if you want support knife steel research too.
Video
I also have a video covering this same material:
Coatings vs Foil – Heat Treating Steel
Thank You Patreon
Thanks to my Patreon supporters I was able to buy all of the coatings to test for this article. If you want to support more knife steel research come join us at Patreon.com/KnifeSteelNerds
Introduction to Knife Steel Heat Treating from a Metallurgist
Join the Knife Steel Nerds Patreon if you want to support knife steel research and get articles and videos early. Or go for the “Ultimate” tier and get a Knife Steel Nerds mug!
Intro
I have many articles about all of the nitty gritty details of heat treating and the metallurgy behind every step. However, there may be some cases where knifemakers are afraid of all of the terminology and science and think heat treating is too complicated for them. When it comes down to it, the steps of heat treating are not particularly difficult. When you follow a recipe for how to make cookies you don’t need to know the science behind every step, but following them will still get you cookies at the end. An expert would know what went wrong if your cookies were too crunchy, too puffy, spread out too much, etc. And how to modify the recipe to change the flavor and texture of the cookies. However for most of us we will just follow the recipe. You can do the same thing with heat treating knife steel! So for this article I will tell you how to follow a datasheet. I will include some links to articles with more information about what happens in each step, but you can get to those when you are ready. Another great place to learn more about heat treating is my book Knife Engineering: Steel, Heat Treating, and Geometry.
Rapid Heat Treating with Salt Pots
Thanks to my Patreon supporters I have a salt pot furnace and was able to get some high temperature salts to test out austenitizing in the salt pot for this article. Patreon dollars also went towards metallography for this study. If you want to support further knife steel research become a Patreon supporter today!
How to Anneal Stainless Steel After Forging
Another rather large heat treating study! This one took quite a bit of time, effort, and money. If you want to support further research visit Patreon.com/KnifeSteelNerds and become a Patreon supporter. All of the money I receive that way goes to knife steel research. And you get some perks like seeing articles and videos early, and at a high enough tier you get a free Knife Steel Nerds mug!
Knife Steel Nerds at Blade Show 2024
I will be at Blade Show Atlanta again this year. The big thing on my schedule is a Blade University class on June 7th, Friday morning. I have done different Blade University classes the past few years and it has been fun each time. This is a general class on thermal cycling using a lot of past studies that we have done which have been published to the website and in recent years to YouTube. However, we did a new study on AEB-L and MagnaCut to have better data on how to “thermal cycle” stainless and high alloy steels and we had some very interesting and exciting results. I am hoping that we can get some more bladesmiths to start forging stainless steels instead of the nearly-universal choice of carbon and low alloy steel. Buy tickets here: https://bladeshow.com/buy-tickets/
AR-RPM9 Knife Steel is False Advertising
It gets expensive to buy knives just to cut them up, and metallography costs even more. Support more knife steel research by going to Patreon.com/KnifeSteelNerds You get to read articles and watch videos before anyone else, participate in the Patreon community, and even get a free mug if you sign up for the highest support level.
Wootz – The True Damascus Steel?
Thanks to Spencer Sandison for providing the Wootz steel for this new study! Thanks to Shawn Houston for performing the microscopy. And thanks to the Knife Steel Nerds Patreon supporters who allow me to do these studies through providing funds for all the experiments. All Patreon dollars go towards knife steel experiments.
Matrix Steels K888 and CPM-1V
Thanks to Roman Kasé for donating the K888 and Niagara Specialty Metals for donating the CPM-1V. Thanks to my Patreon supporters for funding this study, those dollars went toward metallography and CATRA blade grinding. You can support knife steel research by visiting Patreon.com/KnifeSteelNerds
Testing Super High Speed Steel Vanadis 60
The following is a collaboration project between myself and Malachi Chou-Green. He obtained the Vanadis 60, did some heat treating experiments, and also did metallography including some fancy electron microscopy. He also heat treated and machined the CATRA knife that I tested. His original experiments were published some time ago on his Patreon, so if you want to see what he is up to I recommend visiting his Patreon page and becoming a supporter.