Need help with stainless steels

T

Theron Wiese

Joined
Dec 6, 2018
Messages
5
This is my current setup for heat treating;
A home made forge with 1 gas burner.
And a kitchen oven for tempering.

Since I'm still a beginner, my setup is quite low budget.
My plan is to get some O1 steel for now, because it seems to be the all around easy to work with steel.
However I was wondering about other steel types such as D2, 12c27 and 14c28n. I've been reading up on these steels, and they all have some elaborate way of heat treating. Now, would it be possible to heat treat any of these steels with my setup? Since the data sheet on O1 is actually somewhat similarly complicated, even though alot of people use rather simple methods and still get a good hardness. So can this be done with the above mentioned steels or do they simply require to precise parameters?
 
The steels you have listed need to be heat treated in a protective covering and held at temperature for a certain length of time. Forges are not reliable enough for their heat treat.
 
That will work, but you’re leaving some performance on the table with that plan.

Home heat treat with forges is best done with something simpler, like 80CRV2, 1084, 1075 or the like.

O1 needs a longer soak at temp to reach its full potential, so you’re just spending extra money on performance you're not using.

If you’re using O1 cause you can get it locally, I totally understand that, but if you are ordering online or something and paying shipping, I’d buy something more appropriate for your level of tooling.
 
A.McPherson said:
That will work, but you’re leaving some performance on the table with that plan.

Home heat treat with forges is best done with something simpler, like 80CRV2, 1084, 1075 or the like.

O1 needs a longer soak at temp to reach its full potential, so you’re just spending extra money on performance you're not using.

If you’re using O1 cause you can get it locally, I totally understand that, but if you are ordering online or something and paying shipping, I’d buy something more appropriate for your level of tooling.
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I would prefer something along those lines, yes. But O1 i can get fairly easy, another easy option for me would be 5160, how ever they only come in 8mm thick which is a problem for me since, I'm focused in stock removal. The only real knife steel supplier in my area is bohler uddeholm. So for now I'm limmeted to what they offer.
 
With your forge, I would try 8670, and 15n20. When I started out, those were the most consistent with my forge. I could never get good results from 80crv2. Heat to non magnetic, equalize, by making sure color looks even, then quench in parks 50, I would agitate for about 15 seconds, then clamp in aluminum plates, to avoid any warp with thinner blades. I made some pretty decent kitchen blades that way.
 
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