working with A-2

D

dougmo01

Joined
Mar 11, 2016
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4
Hi all, fairly new to the craft and have made a few serviceable knives from mystery steels.
i have a large chunk of A2 that from a die and was curious about how to work it.
Its definitely hardened, a file wont hardly touch it and am curious if it will soften some after forging
thanks,
dougmo01
 
Get some A-2 bar stock in dimensions appropriate for making a knife. It will already be annealed and ready to work.
 
Any pictures or dimensions? What kinds of tools or machines do you have at your disposal? Do you have a forge, heat treat oven, power hammer or metal bandsaw?
 
According to one of my Tool Steel books: anneal A2 @ 1550-1600F, slowly cool @ ~ 30-40F/hour to 1000F after which faster cooling rate can be tolerated. A2 can be isothermally annealed by cooling to 1400F and holding for 4-6 hours then air cooling.
To minimize warpage on hardening, a stress relief anneal at 1200-1300F may be done before final finish machining.
 
What you have now is tempered martensite. What you want is spheroidized annealed. way to do it is heat at 1200 F for 2 hours if you don't have thick material .Othrwise add more time.
 
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