After 1060-1084 what is the 2nd, 3rd, 4th best home HT options?

[Steelhog]

Hey all. So - its commonly recommended that beginning blade makers start with 1060-1084 steels given slightly more forgiving home heat treatment and some other working advantages. Is there a resource or a consolidated list of progression beyond that? In other words, after 1084 what is the 2nd, 3rd, 4th steel generally recommended from home heat treatment as you progress in skill level and equipment? (FYI I am fine with 1084 but just wondering what the progression looks like........)

Home forge:
- Best beginner options
- Moderate difficulty but still possible options
- Advanced/difficult options

Home HT oven
- Best beginner options

 

[Joshua Fisher]

In a forge 8670 is in my opinion the easiest steel to HT right, it has a very large range of hardening temps, it doesn’t have extra carbon or alloys that require a significant soak time. It also a great steel, tough enough to support thin edge geometry and harder blades compared to some other low alloy steels.
If you have a kiln Aebl is a great beginner stainless, ApexUltra is also a new steel that looks very promising and will soon be available in the US through Popsknifesupply.

 

[Blankblank]

80crv2? I would think would be a good option.

Moderate- maybe 01 because of the higher hardenability. But it likely requires a bit more precise heating, and I feel like it could be easy to mess up.

Hardest- probably 1095, 52100. If you start with the right microstructure before austenizing you can do it, but you had better really know what you are doing.

Ht oven- not sure what defines a beginner option here. A2? It has a fairly low austenizing temperature for an air hardening steel.

Really I think 52100 and 1095 could fit into beginner options for a ht oven, because that's where they really would do the best anyway. Probably throw 01 in there too, especially with its higher hardenability.

 

[Steelhog]

In a forge 8670 is in my opinion the easiest steel to HT right, it has a very large range of hardening temps, it doesn’t have extra carbon or alloys that require a significant soak time. It also a great steel, tough enough to support thin edge geometry and harder blades compared to some other low alloy steels.
If you have a kiln Aebl is a great beginner stainless, ApexUltra is also a new steel that looks very promising and will soon be available in the US through Popsknifesupply.

Oh wow great suggestion. Honestly I had not heard of 8670. How would it compare to 1080/1084?

 

[Joshua Fisher]

Oh wow great suggestion. Honestly I had not heard of 8670. How would it compare to 1080/1084?

A bit tougher, it has a touch less carbon which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it can still reach 62-63hrc after temper easily if you want to run a higher hardness, I make kitchen knives out of it and leave them at 62. Much tougher at lower hardness so for machetes, short swords ect it’s a much better option. I saw no benefit to 1084 over 8670 so I switched over and have made well over 1000 knives from it and have no complaints on performance.

 

[Steelhog]

So - would a home forge list look something like this?

Home Forge HT:	Steel:
Simple Options	1060 through 1084, 8670, 15n20
Moderate difficulty options	O1? 80crv2?
Advanced difficulty options	52100, 1095

Looks like 15n20 is also listed in several areas as being super beginner friendly so I will include that in the simple section. Where would 5160 fit into this list?

 

[D-weaver]

How much are you forging vs. stock removal?

 

[Joshua Fisher]

How much are you forging vs. stock removal?

Kinda irrelevant as the question was about home heat treating, you can technically forge some stainless knife steels but that doesn’t mean you can heat treat them in a forge.

 

[D-weaver]

Kinda irrelevant as the question was about home heat treating, you can technically forge some stainless knife steels but that doesn’t mean you can heat treat them in a forge.

Not really. If you find good stock, you can get good results without too much extra work. If you do significant forging, you're very unlikely to be starting from a point as good as the stock started in the first place.

I don't buy bad stock that needs forging, so I can't comment there. I've never done more than just forge shaping - halving thickness or whatever, and don't work at the high end of the forging range for that.

I also can't really answer the home heat treat question here as I have done almost all of my work with O1 and 26c3 and consequently, the routine that works well for them doesn't appear to work well for much else. But I am careful with both of those to not increase the grain size or do unholy things that will ruin the wonderful condition they arrive in.

I think to do a lot of forging and solve heat treat problems at the same time for a novice is a pretty big hill to climb. Stock removal, achieve good results and then maybe deal with the heavy forging is a good order of operations to be sure if there are problems, where they're occurring.

 

[TheEdge01]

Basically, any low alloy steel that requires an extended soak time and tight temperature control is risky to heat treat in a forge. I’ve heat treated a lot of 8670, 1095, 80crv2, and 1084 in my forge with great results. However, I use my oven as much as possible.

 

[Joshua Fisher]

Not really. If you find good stock, you can get good results without too much extra work. If you do significant forging, you're very unlikely to be starting from a point as good as the stock started in the first place.

I don't buy bad stock that needs forging, so I can't comment there. I've never done more than just forge shaping - halving thickness or whatever, and don't work at the high end of the forging range for that.

I also can't really answer the home heat treat question here as I have done almost all of my work with O1 and 26c3 and consequently, the routine that works well for them doesn't appear to work well for much else. But I am careful with both of those to not increase the grain size or do unholy things that will ruin the wonderful condition they arrive in.

I think to do a lot of forging and solve heat treat problems at the same time for a novice is a pretty big hill to climb. Stock removal, achieve good results and then maybe deal with the heavy forging is a good order of operations to be sure if there are problems, where they're occurring.

Proper grain refinement can get steel back to optimal grain size, if you aren’t able to do that on a forged piece then you shouldn’t forge the piece at all. Even low temp forging will grow grain size unless you are cold working/planishing at really low temps. But again that is irrelevant to the question originally asked which was what other steel options are good for heat treating in a forge at home from easy to advanced steels. Anything with soak times required I would consider advanced, 26c3 has excess carbon that would need a soak at temp to get into solution compared to 1075 or 8670, O1 has alloys that need a lot of time to get into solution. Heat treating either without proper soak times will give no better results or performance than if you used 1075 or 1080 since without a soak you won’t get any of the alloys or extra carbon in solution that need that time at temperature. So at best using those steels without the means to properly harden them means you are paying more for steel than you should be as both of those options tend to cost more than 1080.

 

[D-weaver]

I seem to be the photographic negative of most people - I started with O1, had good results with it. Got 26c3, had good results with it. I will shape 26c3 but not with high forging temperatures, and will stop adjusting/shaping as it changes to red heat.

I haven't soaked them.

I tried the same routine with 1084 and 1095 (having never tested them in any use to confirm that they perform well, other than to note the 1095 was hard tempered and a bit chippy in the very few things i made with it) and got somewhat bad results with it and hardness over expected with 1084 and toughness that was probably a sixth of what it should've been - I'd call that an absolute fail.

I've never soaked O1 from either AKS or starrett, though, and haven't seen performance issues. I've never soaked 26c3, either and my test samples matched book results and were tougher than book by a little bit for 26c3 (close to expected at the hardness level for O1), at same hardness.

The reason I asked the question about forge work is I would assume I'm leaning very heavily on what the manufacturer does to get me something that by luck fits my process. I have intentionally grown grain in files and steel samples then and shrunk it back with thermal cycles above and descending into below critical starts, but I'd rather avoid growing it in the first place. I never had any of those samples tested.

I'm a tool maker and not a knife maker, though - what I do is based on what I need for tools. As easy as everyone says 1084 is and as bad as my results were, maybe I need to do some studying, but it wouldn't be on the O1 or 26c3.

I was curious about my 26c3 results because toughness is better than book and hardness isn't short. I think nobody is interested in helping me find out why because the notion is that it's borderline inhumane to not soak 26c3 - personally, I think there may be a chance that it's a rare steel that likes a short heat better than a soak of the structure is good before the heat - because it puts less carbon in solution in the lattice and leaves it in the carbides.

That leads to a comment that many won't agree with - I think 26c3 is a good candidate for someone who is moving up in carbon from 1084 as it doesn't seem to suffer much if it's given minimal thermal treatment and then a fast heat and quench -fast as in heated as quickly as possible and a step above book target with attention toward immediately quenching and not allowing it to sit at the high temperature and grow grain. I guess this is also a little esoteric for someone who eventually buys a furnace - I haven't yet.

I'm suspicious of the average amateur getting steel from heavy forging in 26c3 (or much of anything) back to the same excellent condition that it's delivered in unless they've done a lot of sample snapping and compared photos of different attempts. Everything before heat treatment is a different step - I'm guessing that as the carbides increase in volume and as the complexity of an alloy increases with or without the carbide volume increasing, the odds of getting a good heavily forged sample to heat treat go down. For an amateur, that is, and my comment was more or less based on solving one problem at a time.

 

[A.McPherson]

So - would a home forge list look something like this?

Home Forge HT:	Steel:
Simple Options	1060 through 1084, 8670, 15n20
Moderate difficulty options	O1? 80crv2?
Advanced difficulty options	52100, 1095

Looks like 15n20 is also listed in several areas as being super beginner friendly so I will include that in the simple section. Where would 5160 fit into this list?

According to the ASM heat treater's guide companion app, 5160 would fit nicely in the "easy" category, as the process is just to heat to 1525 and quench in oil.

I know others have said that it needs a 10-15 min or so soak at temperature.

According to Larrin's book you should austenitize at 1500-1525 and soak for 15 min, then quench in medium to fast oil.

I think that it's probably at the high end of easy, if you're really trying to get the most out of it.

It's an easy steel to get decent results, it's more complicated to get good results.

 

[Blankblank]

So - would a home forge list look something like this?

Home Forge HT:	Steel:
Simple Options	1060 through 1084, 8670, 15n20
Moderate difficulty options	O1? 80crv2?
Advanced difficulty options	52100, 1095

Looks like 15n20 is also listed in several areas as being super beginner friendly so I will include that in the simple section. Where would 5160 fit into this list?

I think you can put 80crv2 into the simple tier. Its basically 1080 with a touch of vanadium, and chromium. So higher hardenability (maybe not noticable, because I believe it doesn't have manganese like 1080), and the vanadium should help keep the grain small. Should just be as forgiving, or maybe more so than 1080

 

[DevinT]

Prior condition is also something to consider, fine pearlite transforms fastest into austenite. Fine spheroidite is next and coarse spheroidite would require more soak time.

100% of new knife makers overheat the steel when using a forge to heat treat.

High hardness does not mean that you have a good heat treatment.

Having customers that don’t complain about your poor heat treat is not an indication of a good heat treat.

Proper equipment is key to a superior heat treatment.

A top loading barrel forge fitted with a thermocouple is the best type for heat treating.

I do not recommend using a forge for heat treating.

Heat treating takes practice and testing even with good equipment.

Hoss

 

[Blankblank]

So - would a home forge list look something like this?

Home Forge HT:	Steel:
Simple Options	1060 through 1084, 8670, 15n20
Moderate difficulty options	O1? 80crv2?
Advanced difficulty options	52100, 1095

Looks like 15n20 is also listed in several areas as being super beginner friendly so I will include that in the simple section. Where would 5160 fit into this list?

Honestly putting more thought into this. I think getting rid of the moderate difficulty tier would be the most logical thing. Because either the steels are somewhere around doable, or they are going to be difficult to get right. Not much in between. Either the steels will be able to be quenched directly at non magnetic, or they will need a soak. That's what differentiates the easy and difficult options as far as I can tell.

Devin brings up a great point. Using a pearlitic starting microstructure, will allow you to cut down on soak times with steels like 52100, 26c3, 1095, o1 etc. So if they are going to be done in a forge. That will be what you want to do. They still aren't what you would call easy to do, but that's how the best results in a forge will be had.

I think just looking at data sheets can give some good insight into what steels you will want to work with for doing a simple ht in a forge, and what you will want to avoid.

 

[Steelhog]

Honestly putting more thought into this. I think getting rid of the moderate difficulty tier would be the most logical thing. Because either the steels are somewhere around doable, or they are going to be difficult to get right. Not much in between. Either the steels will be able to be quenched directly at non magnetic, or they will need a soak. That's what differentiates the easy and difficult options as far as I can tell.

Devin brings up a great point. Using a pearlitic starting microstructure, will allow you to cut down on soak times with steels like 52100, 26c3, 1095, o1 etc. So if they are going to be done in a forge. That will be what you want to do. They still aren't what you would call easy to do, but that's how the best results in a forge will be had.

I think just looking at data sheets can give some good insight into what steels you will want to work with for doing a simple ht in a forge, and what you will want to avoid.

Great point and looking at the responses it looks like beyond the "simple" list below you would likely have progressed to a HT oven or stuck in the hobby phase with the below safer options. But it was really helpful to add a few other steels to the simple list as flavor options for new and hobby makers like myself before acquiring a HT oven.

Home Forge HT:	Steel:
Best Options	1060 through 1084, 8670, 15n20, 5160

 

[Blankblank]

Great point and looking at the responses it looks like beyond the "simple" list below you would likely have progressed to a HT oven or stuck in the hobby phase with the below safer options. But it was really helpful to add a few other steels to the simple list as flavor options for new and hobby makers like myself before acquiring a HT oven.

Home Forge HT:	Steel:
Best Options	1060 through 1084, 8670, 15n20, 5160

Again I think you can add 80crv2 to that.

 

[Alex Topfer]

I think you need to define the range of the target. Do you expect every blade to come out within the margin of error of a high end hardness and impact tester? Do you want it to be good enough for a mechanically simple tool? Somewhere in between?
That will inform your answer as much as asking us.
"Good HT" is just too vague an idea.

Also once you start talking about kilns the questions is quality of the kiln and willingness of the operator to do the reading. Part of the point of them as a tool is to remove skill (and replace it with knowledge, which is easier to get). So I don't think "beginner with oven" makes much sense.

To actually answer the question: what the people above said until you get bored and want to spend money on risky steels or new tools.