A couple of thoughts Gary. How long is your soak time? I usually go five minutes, but some go 10. Also you might increase your temp to 1485, since you do not want a hamon you could even go to 1500. Just curious, how thick is your anti scale compound? It could be acting like a clay coating, especially in the thicker areas up by the spine. When I go for a hamon my clay is not very thick at all. Just some ideas.

Brion

Hey Gary please let us know

Scott

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A couple of thoughts Gary. How long is your soak time? I usually go five minutes, but some go 10. Also you might increase your temp to 1485, since you do not want a hamon you could even go to 1500. Just curious, how thick is your anti scale compound? It could be acting like a clay coating, especially in the thicker areas up by the spine. When I go for a hamon my clay is not very thick at all. Just some ideas.

Brion

Brion,

I've been using a 5 minute soak. For an anti-scale I usually use the liquid from Brownell's (ATP-641). It isn't very thick.

Gary

Gary I would try 1500 with the five minute soak with the anti scale and without. I will forge a hunter out and see what I come up with. I am curious now. I know that Nick wheeler has gotten hamons with no clay at all using W2, but lets see about a fully hardened blade.

Brion

Thanks, Brion. I'll give that a try.

Gary

I find it quite refreshing that somebody wants to intentionally fully harden W series these days, kudos to you Gary for being a maverick. Now for the tough part, actually doing it. The problem with going for all martensite with this simple hypereutectoid steel is that the unwanted pearlite will just as quickly be replaced with retained austenite, if you are not careful. Controlling the retained austenite requires that you leave some carbides. But here is the frustrating part- carbides, other particles and fine grain size increases the rate of pearlite formation, so your noble efforts in pre-hardening grain refinement are making it harder to get rid of that pearlite. As has been mentioned, the quickest way to increase the depth of hardening is to bump up your austenitizing temp. This will dissolve more of those carbides that act as a toehold for the pearlite initiation, and perhaps bump the grain size up a small bit, but will then only replace the pearlite with retained austenite.

I would start by sticking with the 1475F but making your pre-hardening thermal cycles less intense ( higher temps, fewer times) Quench into the P#50 that has been warmed to around 100F and agitate VERY well.

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I find it quite refreshing that somebody wants to intentionally fully harden W series these days, kudos to you Gary for being a maverick. Now for the tough part, actually doing it. The problem with going for all martensite with this simple hypereutectoid steel is that the unwanted pearlite will just as quickly be replaced with retained austenite, if you are not careful. Controlling the retained austenite requires that you leave some carbides. But here is the frustrating part- carbides, other particles and fine grain size increases the rate of pearlite formation, so your noble efforts in pre-hardening grain refinement are making it harder to get rid of that pearlite. As has been mentioned, the quickest way to increase the depth of hardening is to bump up your austenitizing temp. This will dissolve more of those carbides that act as a toehold for the pearlite initiation, and perhaps bump the grain size up a small bit, but will then only replace the pearlite with retained austenite.

I would start by sticking with the 1475F but making your pre-hardening thermal cycles less intense ( higher temps, fewer times) Quench into the P#50 that has been warmed to around 100F and agitate VERY well.

Thanks, Kevin. I don't really object drastically to having some pearlite in the spine of most blades. I understand the plus's & minus's of a differentially H/T'ed blade but that doesn't mean that I always want the spine to be pearlite. Tempered martensite can be a good thing as well. H/T'ing a blade is such a controlled process, it just bothers me when I'm not in control of what's going on with the steel.

It sounds as if I'm doing most of what you suggest other than the pre-hardening temps. I typically place the normalized blade in a pre-heated oven and soak @ 1475 without doing any sub-critical soaks. Do you have suggestions for that as to time & temperature?

Gary

I've done a bunch of both. I do not think I have ever fully hardened either one and always have got some type of hamon.

It's just so shallow hardening that it's tough to beat that little window of time.

And I've got them pretty hot and heated my #50, yet still get some auto-hamon.