Johnnyreb338 Posted September 7, 2017 Share Posted September 7, 2017 Good afternoon friends. I need a bit of guidance on heat treating D2, I recently took on a 4 knife project for some meat cutting/ butcher knives. I've exclusively used basic oil quenched steels up to this point, but being used in a moisture rich environment I opted for d2 being it's semi stainless hopeing it would resist corrosion a little better. Well I thought I had done my homework and had a plan for an air quench chamber. Well the first blade was a complete disaster. Now I have to order another piece of stock to complete my project. Anyway I am useing .170 thick x 1.750 wide bar stock from alpha knife supply. I hammer forged the cutting edge of the blade to profile the cutting edge as well as to put a curve into the blade as per the customer. As suspected I file tested it after it cooled and it work hardened pretty good. To quench It i used a piece of tubing and capped 1 end and plumbed my compressed air into it with a ball valve. I heated it to a nice dull orange color and let it cool 2 times to normalize. Then heated to a nice florescent orange, held it therefore 15 min to soak, and into the air chamber for quenching, pulled it out file checked and no go, it chewed right down it. Repeated again, same results. At this point I normalized it again and reheated to an almost yellow and air quenched again, I could still cut grooves into it. Then panic set in, i increased the temp and melted the blade off in my forge. Sorry for my grammar and lengthy post. But any advice would be appreciated. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted September 7, 2017 Share Posted September 7, 2017 Send it out for professional heat treatment. D2 is NOT something to guess with eg. "dull orange" and (florescent) I assume you meant "incandescent" orange. In either case you're guessing at the temperatures on steel that DEMANDS precise control. Heat treater will save you a bunch of money and time. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnyreb338 Posted September 7, 2017 Author Share Posted September 7, 2017 It's really that sensitive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted September 7, 2017 Share Posted September 7, 2017 Yes. Google it. There are guys with years of experience color judging temperature who can pull it off but it's a pretty advanced skill and will cost you a LOT in scrapped high dollar steel to learn. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted September 7, 2017 Share Posted September 7, 2017 yes! The high alloy steels generally take very precise heat treating to get what you wanted the high alloy for in the first place. Otherwise it's like buying high speed racecar tires for the car you never drive over 35 mph in. As I recall D2 needs ramping, a high temp soak to solutionize all those wild carbides. The swordmaker I know who used it had a custom built computerized inert atmosphere heat treat furnace to heat treat D2 in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnyreb338 Posted September 7, 2017 Author Share Posted September 7, 2017 Cool, yeah I've looked at those google color charts at least a thousand times. I do pretty good with the standard carbon steels like 52100 and 5160 but I wanted to update my game a notch. Live and learn guess I'll finish them out and send them out all at once, save on shipping. Thanks for responding Just now, ThomasPowers said: yes! The high alloy steels generally take very precise heat treating to get what you wanted the high alloy for in the first place. Otherwise it's like buying high speed racecar tires for the car you never drive over 35 mph in. As I recall D2 needs ramping, a high temp soak to solutionize all those wild carbides. The swordmaker I know who used it had a custom built computerized inert atmosphere heat treat furnace to heat treat D2 in. Dang, so basically the doit yourselfer is pretty much stuck with the lower end carbon steels that rust. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted September 7, 2017 Share Posted September 7, 2017 No, you can do 440C stock removal blades and have fully stainless blades that come as heat treated blanks. Of course you have to NOT burn them grinding but that's not so hard. Hmmmm, the voices in my head just said something crazy. I wonder if a person could chrome plate high carbon steel blades. . . No, not shiny silver like a bumper that's polished nickle plating, the chrome plating is clear and protects the nickle from oxidizing. Thoughts guys? Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnyreb338 Posted September 7, 2017 Author Share Posted September 7, 2017 Thanks frosty, I'm not a fan at all with stainless blades, ( just my preference) being an outdoorsman ive owned a pile of 440 and 420hc knives and just really not to impressed with them. Don't get me wrong they have there place I guess, just not my thing. I've been pondering the idea of building me a small salt bath to do hot blueing. Brownells sells the blueing salts and can be doubled as a tempering medium. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jclonts82 Posted September 7, 2017 Share Posted September 7, 2017 From an app called "Heat Treat" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted September 7, 2017 Share Posted September 7, 2017 1 hour ago, Johnnyreb338 said: Thanks frosty, I'm not a fan at all with stainless blades, ( just my preference) being an outdoorsman ive owned a pile of 440 and 420hc knives and just really not to impressed with them. Don't get me wrong they have there place I guess, just not my thing. I've been pondering the idea of building me a small salt bath to do hot blueing. Brownells sells the blueing salts and can be doubled as a tempering medium. I have a couple 440C knives in plastic sheathes I wore one strapped and taped to the outside of my rain gear when we were drilling off barges. If you get caught by a loop of rope and dragged in you do NOT have time to undress to get your pocket knife out and hope the salt air environment hasn't rusted the edge dull. Not my choice for knife steel but there are times reliably sharp is more important than personal preference. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzkill Posted September 7, 2017 Share Posted September 7, 2017 440C has gotten kind of a bad reputation, but keep in mind that a knife made from that steel does not mean it has been heat treated properly. A lot of the cheap SS knives have 440C stamped in them, but chances are they are just stamped out and mass produced. From what I've seen from knife makers who handle the steel properly it will perform well, but still not as good as some of the newer SS alloys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnyreb338 Posted September 7, 2017 Author Share Posted September 7, 2017 Thanks everyone for the speedy replies, sounds like I will be sending these out for treatment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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