Thread: Looking for the best heat treatment for O1

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

You might try thermal cycling with an oil quench instead of normalizing. You only need to quench to black (400C), not to room temperature and the grain structure will be smaller with each cycle. I will do three cycles routinely. Warm oil would be fine. I suspect with your normalizing process that the grain was much larger than you see in these broken sections.

Today I have made a new small razor for the next attempt. How warm the oil would be?

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

A second variable I would attempt to change given all that has been reported here is to limit the austenitizing soak time to five minutes. O-1 is a simple steel but it does have a minor chromium content and chromium is aggressive in carbide formation. My shop soak times are five minutes.

This will be the next attempt. Thanks!

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

Thanks for the most excellent pictures and good notes on your times and temperatures.
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Keep up the good work!

Your welcome.

Thank you so much!