HELLO, I INHERITED SOME STEEL A FEW YEARS AGO AND HAVE BEEN MAKING BLADES FROM IT BUT LATELY I CAN'T SEEM TO ANNEIL THE STUFF. ON THE WRAPER ITS CALLED WARPLESS AND IM ASSUMING ITS O1 IT IS A OIL HARDING STEEL. MY FREIND THAT PASSED WAS A MACHINEST. I USE LIME AS A ANNEILING MEDIUM THOUGH IM READY TO SWITCH TO VERMECULITE AS IT SEEMS THAT MOST PEOPLE USE IT.ANY IDEAS?

Don't know if you are in the Northern Hemisphere; but in winter it can be too cold to get a good anneal without "helping" it a bit.

I suggest taking a heavier bar and heating it up to the same temp, (so start heating it first), and then placing both in your annealing material *together* so that there is enough heat stored up to do the anneal. A more insulative annealing material than lime should help too.

First please turn off your caps-loc, this is called shouting, and it makes things hard to read. There are posted notes about aspects of heat treating in the knife section.

Another option, depending on your forge arrangement, is to let the billet anneal in the forge as it slowly cools down. You could also try vermiculite instead of lime.

I often anneal in my gas forge, heating the piece up at the end of the day and then turning off the forge and shutting it up to make heat loss as slow as easily possible. For small items I still often use a Helper Bar".

I don't use the coal forge to anneal in as I like it OUT before I leave the shop.

I always had really good success with the ashes out of the wood stove. Just stir/fluff them up, and put the piece in.

Shoot, since it is winter, just chuck it into the wood stove, that is if ya have one.

What exactly is happening that causes you to say you're having trouble annealing the steel?

It could be an air hardening steel that wont anneal. No matter what you do if it is raised to hardening temp it will harden. You should try tempering it to 1100F or some such thing. Non-warping steels can be air hardening.

I always had really good success with the ashes out of the wood stove. Just stir/fluff them up, and put the piece in.

Shoot, since it is winter, just chuck it into the wood stove, that is if ya have one.

***** i just might try the wood stove thing ..i like that thanks!

What exactly is happening that causes you to say you're having trouble annealing the steel?

hello, what's going on is after forging out the blade i will normalize by bringing the blade to a good orange color then setting it aside on the coal bed then again to orange and putting it in lime ( witch i plan on getting rid of ) then i try to drill a hole for pins and it's just to hard. the wraper on the material says it's an oil harding steel and it's warpless,maybee a brand name? also it has the recipe of the steel on the wraper but i am not to familar with the peticular's, maybee if i had some kind of chart?

I often anneal in my gas forge, heating the piece up at the end of the day and then turning off the forge and shutting it up to make heat loss as slow as easily possible. For small items I still often use a Helper Bar".

I don't use the coal forge to anneal in as I like it OUT before I leave the shop.

thank's, thats a good one , i did not think of that one , i will try it . have a great day!

If it's a high carbon steel (greater than around 0.8% C), the usual annealing approach of very slow cooling from above critical can actually be counterproductive. You may be getting it soft, but so full of big, wear resistant carbides that it's very difficult to drill. This isn't just a problem for machining; it could also lead to problems in the finished blade. See this thread for a little more info:

Greetings,

You mentioned there was some more information on the wrapper, could you give us all of that information? It may help to determine exactly what steel you have, and what would be the best temperature and time ranges to work with.

01 contains 0.90% carbon; 1.00% manganese; 0.50 chromium; and 0.50% tungsten. It can't be normalized, because it will harden in air. When hardened in air, it becomes metallurgically unstable, so that is to be avoided. It can also partially harden if you take too long getting to the lime. Annealing for 01 is done at 1400-1450ºF (a full cherry red taken on the rising heat). An orange heat is just shy of 1800ºF, too hot for annealing.

http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools