Heat Treating Info for Making Tools

Larry Williams of Clark and Williams Planemakers offered to write an article on do it yourself heat treating of tools steel. This is oriented toward the hobbiest who wants to make some tools for him or herself and doesn't want to go throught days or weeks of research.

As promised by Larry, he has posted an article for public use on the C & W website. This is a wonderful service to the community and should add a bit of motivation to those of you have sat or stood on the sidelines saying, "I can't do that." You now have no excuses.

Thank you Larry, your efforts are greatly appreciated.

http://www.planemaker.com/articles/heat-teat.html

Slight typo in the URL. Try this:

http://www.planemaker.com/articles/heat-treat.html

Thanks Larry!

Michael

It will be interesting to hear what the professional metallurgists have to say about this.

Technically decalescence is defined as the point where energy is being absorbed by the material as it changes phase and so the material may actually appear to cool a bit before continuing to warm up. I can see this leading to a splotchy appearance.

However, if I saw the splotchy appearance shown in one of the photos (and it wasn't just a weird scale pattern) I'd be worried about how much of the structure actually completed the transition to austenite and how much was still undergoing the transformation when I did the quench.

On the other hand, if it produces decent blades, and it's easy to see - then that satisfies the original mission of the article.

Thanks Larry for writing the article and Dave for posting it. Larry had a comment as to why the camera looked different than what he was seeing regarding the "flux" - this might be because cameras will pick up infared, while we mere mortals can't see it.

I got an unexpected bonus over the holidays and am considering splurging on a metal cutting bandsaw. I'm looking forward to trying my hand at plane making over the next few months. As a mechanical engineer, the metal working part of it doesn't intimidate me that much. Kind of the opposite - gives me an excuse to upgrade my meager metalworking facilities.

In related news, the few books I've read on planemaking all seem to mention apple as a good species to use. My house is built on an old farm, the backyard is the old apple orchard. I've had to thin them out a bit, kind of bumming now that I've used all the wood for fuel, should have saved a few pieces... Still have a few that need to come down, might have to set some aside for future use...

Thanks for the great site!!!!:)