anealing <split from another thread>

[Steve Sells]

19 hours ago, Benona blacksmith said:

 This is one of myths just like "annealing" in vermiculite.

 

 

what is mythical about annealing in Vermiculite?

[Benona blacksmith]

It doesn't work. If you want to anneal a certain steel look at the spec sheets and follow the directions just like you would if you are hardening the steel. You really need a controlled oven to do proper annealing. You can't get maximum softness by heating it up and letting it cool "slowly" in vermiculite. Save your time and just normalize the piece and go to the next step.

[Steve Sells]

shame I never noticed that I havent been getting my steel soft these past 30 years, hmmm did you ever think there may be degrees of annealing, not everything needs sheroidized annealing

[Charles R. Stevens]

My experience shows me otherwise Benona. I know other smiths who have had similar experiences. 

[anvil]

I agree with Charles and Steve. I prefer lime over vermiculite.

[pnut]

I've used wood ash simply because it's what I had, but I've found the steel much softer after a slow cooling In ash versus normalizing it in the open air.  

Pnut

[anvil]

Wood Ash is good too. I like the density of lime. I believe it tends to settle around the iron better and hold the heat better because of this density. 

[Benona blacksmith]

It will work to a certain degree with simple 10xx series steel up to .8% carbon after that it will form lamellar sheets of carbide that will burn up drill bits and booger up files. It's not good for complex alloys 

[Steve Sells]

you said nothing about alloys. you said the process is a myth, which is false

[Benona blacksmith]

You are right. I said nothing about alloys. Which makes my statement partly untrue and I apologize for that.

[Benona blacksmith]

Great idea splitting this up from the other thread and starting a new topic!!!

Thank you Steve 

[ThomasPowers]

Yup; a lot of the high alloy stuff is pretty much impossible to anneal without a computer controlled ramping furnace and so the bladesmiths need to pay strict attention to what the spec sheets say. (Sometimes they say Don't Normalize---some of the S series as I recall.)

However most general smiths are only working in the straight 10XX alloys or things like wrought iron derived steels and they do follow the paths worn smooth by generations of smiths. They do need to remember that if they step out of the old stuff, they better hit the books to see forging ranges and heat treats!  (I generally use the ASM handbook on heat treating.)

I've noticed that a lot of crafts get stuck in their processes and so forget that others may be doing things differently---like armourers tend to use the term annealing when they are actually normalizing, used to drive me up the wall.  Now as more are beginning to work in differing alloy steels they are having to learn about differing heat treats and working practices.