Heat treating W2

I made a cutting test video but my camera work leaves something to be desired. The knife retained a good edge after 16" of 1/4" sisal rope so all in all I would say it is pretty good steel. Not sure if I should try to tweak the heat treat at all. I went 1460F for 10 minutes (knives and oven heated together from room temp) and a brine quench (1 pound salt per gallon of water at about 75F) and two one hour tempers at 425F.

[video=youtube;U-WSKHEzX58]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-WSKHEzX58[/video]
 
KDX said:
I made a cutting test video but my camera work leaves something to be desired. The knife retained a good edge after 16" of 1/4" sisal rope so all in all I would say it is pretty good steel. Not sure if I should try to tweak the heat treat at all. I went 1460F for 10 minutes (knives and oven heated together from room temp) and a brine quench (1 pound salt per gallon of water at about 75F) and two one hour tempers at 425F.

[video=youtube;U-WSKHEzX58]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-WSKHEzX58[/video]
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Good work. You do know that with a 1460 soak, brine quench and 425F temper, that blade is probably rather hard. Think of the first number being 6 and the second not being 0 or 1 or maybe even 2. Kitchen knife hardness. But not to worry. W2 does quite well at those hardness levels if you did it right. If this is a test knife, try something more vigorous and see what happens.
 
KDX said:
Thanks for the info. What would be considered vigorous?
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I may have to defer to our bushcraft and tactical guys for that one. All I will say that cutting rope pretty much a strictly a test of abrasion resistance in a push cutting situation. You might want to test in a slicing situation with abrasive material like corrugated cardboard for starter and then go pound something. :3: But seriously, toward the end of his life, Bill Moran was using a lot of differentially hardened high quality 5160 because it is a good simple steel and he could actually find it in the market. I had a chance to talk to him a couple of times in the year before he died and he told me that in his decades of experience, the W2 that he used for many years was quite close to being as tough as the 5160, but held an edge for a considerably longer time. You just couldn't find it on a regular basis anymore.
 
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jmforge said:
Good work. You do know that with a 1460 soak, brine quench and 425F temper, that blade is probably rather hard. Think of the first number being 6 and the second not being 0 or 1 or maybe even 2. Kitchen knife hardness. But not to worry. W2 does quite well at those hardness levels if you did it right. If this is a test knife, try something more vigorous and see what happens.
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i consistently get Rc64 with those temps. I use that for my kitchen knives in W2. For hunters skinners, I temper at 450, and get Rc62 to 63. I haven't had one chip yet. Great steel.
 
Thanks Warren. Would I be able to do a third temper at 450 to bring the Rc down a bit even after they have been sitting for a few days or is it something that should be done in succession?
 
You can do it now. The first temp needs to be relatively soon, as it is the main stress relief and will prevent you from finding a cracked blade the next morning. I recently did another temper on a knife that wasn't finished 6 months after the initial heat treat. I wanted it 1 Rc pint lower.
 
Warren Krywko said:
You can do it now. The first temp needs to be relatively soon, as it is the main stress relief and will prevent you from finding a cracked blade the next morning. I recently did another temper on a knife that wasn't finished 6 months after the initial heat treat. I wanted it 1 Rc pint lower.
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The good news is that with W2, you might find it cracked the next morning and not while you are waiting for the oven to cool down. :3:
 
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Warren Krywko said:
i consistently get Rc64 with those temps. I use that for my kitchen knives in W2. For hunters skinners, I temper at 450, and get Rc62 to 63. I haven't had one chip yet. Great steel.
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Same temps here. Hell, I do big W2 bowies at 450F!!! :biggrin:
 
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