Heat Treating and Processing

What a Good Heat Treatment Can and Cannot Do

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The Legend of Heat Treatment

There is some debate about knives that have steel with a “good heat treatment” vs those that have a bad or sub-par heat treatment. Some knifemakers have a near legendary reputation for their excellent heat treatments. What exactly is possible in terms of heat treating? How much better can steel be? How bad can it get? read more

Austenitic Stainless, Corrosion Resistance, History - Articles - Books, Steel and Knife Properties

H1 Steel – How it Works

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Austenitic Stainless Steels

At its most basic, H1 is an austenitic stainless steel. Austenitic stainless steels are about as old as stainless steel itself, being developed by German metallurgists in the approximate time period of 1909-1912. They worked on 18% Cr, 8% Ni steels which are quite similar to common austenitic stainless steels like 301, 302, and 304. read more

Annealing

How Annealing of Steel Works – Subcritical vs Transformation Annealing

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Why Anneal?

There are three primary goals of annealing steel:

  1. Make the steel machinable so that it can be easily cut, drilled, and ground.
  2. Setup the steel for austenitizing and quenching (hardening) so that is has good heat treating response
  3. Provide the best possible properties in the final heat treated product

The above goals are not always 100% compatible, but we would like to offer the optimal combination based on our priorities. However, to know what the trade-offs are we need to know how annealing works first. read more

Austenitizing, Heat Treating and Processing, Toughness

How to Heat Treat 52100

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52100 Steel

I previously wrote about the history and properties of 52100 in this article. The steel has been around since 1905, has been known as 52100 since 1919, and has been used in knives since at least the 1940’s. It was developed for bearings and its common use in bearings meant it has been a ready source for knife steel for decades. It is known for its fine carbide size and good toughness. The chromium addition compared with the chromium-free 1095 means that it has somewhat higher hardenability so it is easier to harden in oil and obtain full hardness. The chromium also helps keep the carbide size small. The chromium also shifts up the temperatures required for hardening. read more

Forging

Which Steels are Easiest (and Most Difficult) to Forge?

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Forging Steel

Typically forging bladesmiths have restricted their steel selection to low alloy steels like 1095, 1084, 5160, 52100, O1, etc. There are a variety of reasons given for why the bladesmiths usually use these relatively simple steels. Often “ease in heat treatment” is a common one. However, this article will focus on which steels are physically more difficult to deform with the hammer and which crack most readily. What controls “forgeability” or steel? read more