Home Forums Gear Knives and Blades Any D2 Heat Treat Experts?

Just starting into knifemaking, have two blades ground out of D2, the guy that showed me how to do it tried heat treating the D2 in his forge and then quenching in an oil bath. He was experienced with 0-1 and 1095 steels (with good results), he had been reading about doing this procedure with D2 and wanted to try it. Well, the result is a soft blade, he wanted to try again, and still, a soft blade.

The question I have is can these two blades be sent to a heat treat shop (like Texas Knifemakers Supply) and be properly hardened now with the properly controlled ovens? I've got a half dozen blades ground out that I am going to send out, and wondering if these original two can be thrown in the mix as well.

Contact TKS and ask them if the blades can be either annealed or stress relieved, then re-heatreated.

You didn't say what temperature the blades were tempered at, but D-2 has a low, about 450 F, tempering temperature.

D2 is a high chrome, high carbon, air hardening tool steel, and as such will decarborize unless heated in a vacuum or controled atmosphere furnace.

I have been reading about heat treating high allow steels for many years, and I have never heard of this method of hardening D2.

IIRC it has to be heated to about 1800 F, which is about 300 F hotter than O1 and 1095. He might not have got it hot enough before quenching, or he might have burnt the carbon out of the steel when he heated it in the forge, and that might be the reason it is soft.

Maybe give TKS a call.

I'll bet they can heat treat them. They may have to anneal them first, and then do the heat treat.

The only thing I'd use a forge and bucket of oil for is making a steel "hard" or "sorta hard".

For a knife, I'd want temps and times carefully controlled.

But, I'm not a heat treat expert.

I'll give TKS a call and discuss before I send them down.

And yeah, prior to my research I was taking his word for it that he could do it, now I know to just send them off. In my research, I did find some guys that were heating in a forge, and then plate cooling it, supposedly with good results. I'll just stick to what the experts say is best though from here on out.

From what I could find on D2 you do a controlled temperature rise, preheat it for a while at like 1300 (just throwing that out as an example, can't remember the exact number), then take it up to soak at 1800, then a controlled cool down prior to tempering. One of these days I'll spring for an oven, but can't really justify it when TKS will do it for $5 or so, hope they do acceptable work, which I've heard they do.

The pre-heat, for example soak at 1300 degrees is called stress relieving.

The controlled cool down would be quenching, whether in oil, brine, or air. D2 is air quenched. Just my in expert opinion, but it appears that steels with a high chrome content are air quenched.

The best commercial heat treat firm that I am aware of is Paul Bos in Post Falls, Idaho. Ph 208-262-0500 ext 211. Paul's knife heat treating is well reknown. He charges around $80.00 for up to 20 blades or $14.00 for individual blades.

According to the owner of Texas Knife Supply where I had a couple dozen blades done before I bought an oven, you can re-do a heat treat as long as you don't do a cryo. The cryo permanently fixes the structure of the steel, or some such thing. I had some of my first D2 blades warp on me, and re heat treated them, and straightened them, and they're fine. Guys have had them since before Christmas and are doing well with them.

Welcome to knifemakin' Cheesy

Here's a site that should be helpfull

http://www.ajh-knives.com/metals.html

Hey Cheesy

I went through Melvin Dunn's work shop at Rossville,KS in the late 80's or early 90's. People were working with D2, but not having much luck. He was one of the first to master the art. His blades stayed sharp. His family makes the knives now out S60V. Bob Dozier from AR has outstanding D2. Might be worth a drive to AR just to nose around. We had BBQ just west of Stones Corner recently.

if anybody knows d2 is bob dozier , if i was you i would go to his web site lots of wisdom there.