could I have heat treated with a plasma cutter?

W

Warneraa

Joined
Jan 10, 2012
Messages
6
I just recently got into this and did some designs and cut them out with a plasma cutter started to file material and the bottom seemed to file just fine but the top seems to extremely hard. Is it possible that I heat treated it so that I can't file it? I used A2 steel. ANy info would be great thanks.

Andrew
 
Andrew, since plasma cutting uses an arc hot enough to essentially melt the steel - yes, it hardened your steel. Since A2 is air hardening steel it exacerbated the issue (although with oil hardening steels it will also harden next to the kerf).
 
After plasma cutting, you have to grind the edges clean.
Annealing can take care of the problem, but air hardening steels are trickier to anneal.
 
Will I be able to heat treat again or is it a one time thing? what would I have to do to anneal it? Thanks for the help.
 
First, Welcome to Bladeforums.

Please read up on heat treatment. I think you may not understand the process, yet.
There is a lot of info in the stickys.

Heat Treatment involves all the thermal events that you do to steel.

Hardening is one of those processes. You can re-Heat Treat the steel. Often, things done in working on a knife will harden or soften it. This is all made right in the final Heat treatment, hardening, and tempering.
 
On the other hand, your lucky that you used plasma instead of OA. The HAZ(heat affected zone) of a plasma cutter is rather small compared to a cutting torch. It should only be a small amount that you need to grind away, 1/16" - 1/8" at most.
 
Andy, good to see ya posting!!! Dito on what Stacy posted above... good info in the stickys and great place to start "digging into data" :D
 
Heat treating with a plasma cutter is like attempting brain surgery with a brick.
 
steel is forgiving...old material can be made as new with the addition of heat. A2 is a problem when grinding and cutting with plasma or torch as the temp can get way above heat treat levels. Anneal it when you need to work on it then heat treat as needed for the material.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top