Some tech talk reference

[kbaknife]

I thought I might direct some attention to some recent discussions on 'heat treating'.
I did go into a little discussion at a recent hammer-in about the wide-spread misuse of the term 'heat treating', as most people seem to use it when, what they really mean, is 'hardening'.
Heat treating begins with the first heat in the forge. At that point, one is 'treating' the steel structure with 'heat'. And it continues on through higher forging heats, reducing forging heats, etc.
'Heat treating' continues to include post forging heats, normalizing, spherodizing, annealing, post grinding heats, re-crystalizing prior to hardening, hardening, tempring, etc.
They're all 'heat treating'.
Each one is simply one step of the heat treating process.
That said, there are some recent layman term discussion on Knife Dogs by Kevin Cashen going into some basic procedures of 'heat treating basics', 'annealing', normalizing', etc. I do believe Kevin is a new Moderator on Knife dogs.
Sniff through the 'Heat treating' sub-forum and you'll find them all.
Hope this gives you something to read while sitting in front of the A/C.
http://knifedogs.com/forumdisplay.php?124-Heat-Treating-Forum-on-KnifeDogs

[Bladepeek]

Kevin definitely knows his heat treating. I bought some of his 01/L6 damascus, but took it back to him after finish grinding for his mar quenching in a salt bath. He explained how the high temp salt solidifies on the cold blade monentarily and acts as a heat cushion for a gradual heat up. Also, there is no scale since there is no oxygen flying around in the salts.

Nice to have a guy of that caliber living near  

[kbaknife]

This is what I found to be the most important statement in all of those writings:

"Hardening and tempering may seem like the most important operations to the fledgling heat treater but their success and approach is profoundly determined by conditions established in normalization."

In other words, you may achieve some type of success in hardening, but if you are hardening steel that is in the wrong condition, it may get hard, but you have junk. Hard junk, but junk.