Thread: Basic questions for forging a razor

In my first attempt i tried stock grinding to the perfered shape. I would like to try to forge one. I have gotten to the desired basic shape but want to know if I wasted time of annealing before forging?

Should I have to anneal again prior to grinding in the hollow? In other words did I mess up the first anneal with the pounding of the hammer and all the reheating?

Not necessarily, but there are a lot of variables that go into forging and then setting up the steel for stock removal.

How high was your austentizing temperature before annealing? Please list what you did in your annealing process. These questions only lead me down the path of curiosity...realistically if the steel grinds away without resistance, e.g. it doesn't seem like a fight to get steel removed, it's probably annealed well enough. All you want is steel that's softer than hard to make the machining process easier.

[QUOTE=Mike Blue;1507787]How high was your austentizing temperature before annealing? Please list what you did in your annealing process. QUOTE]

Do not know temp as I just heated in a homemade coal forge till non-magnetic and let cool overnight in a styrofoam cooler full of ash.

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EDIT: First time I missed the second part of your question

Yes, annealing before forging is generally a waste of time with razor sized objects. Because after the first heat and hammering, the piece would be work hardened again. As long as you hammer when it is at least orange, you should not have to anneal. The only exception I can see is if the piece is long, and not everything gets heated. Then the 'cold' sections might crack during hammering.

And

YES! After forging you have to anneal. otherwise you are going to grind / drill work hardened steel.
Forging does that, no matter what you start with. The first annealing is basically pointless unless you work with pieces that at long and which will be sectionally heated. After forging you anneal. Otherwise it will cost you more time, more grinding belts, and multiple drill bits

What kind of steel?

Sorry I missed the 2nd part of your question. The answer is YES!
After forging you have to anneal. otherwise you are going to grind / drill work hardened steel.
Forging does that, no matter what you start with. The first annealing is basically pointless unless you work with pieces that at long and which will be sectionally heated.

After forging you anneal. Otherwise it will cost you more time, more grinding belts, and multiple drill bits

I am using 1095

Okay. I like your forge and your annealing method. The blade should be soft enough to grind easier, depending on the steel type.

Thermal cycling can be important. That will depend on the heat history. Many heats at forging colors will affect grain growth. As you gain experience, the number of heats to finish the forging process will go down. Thermal cycling will make the grain finer, the steel tougher, some of us recommend it.

I don't know that i would have you would worry too much yet. Get a few blades forged, get comfortable with working the outside of the bar. There's all kinds of time to get the rest.

Originally Posted by paco

I am using 1095

In that case, annealing after forging will still be beneficial, but not strictly necessary assuming that after the last heat, you didn't do a whole lot of working while it was cooling down. 1095 should be pretty clean steel with not much alloying, meaning that it will not harden so easy.

Basically, when you heat treat 1095, you have a second or so to drop the temperature. If you don't cool down that fast, your 1095 will still be soft enough to bend. So logically, if you aircool it after the last heat (holding it in tongs, not laying it on the cold anvil) it will be soft enough to work.

With alloyed steels, the story is more difficult, and annealing becomes necessary. I use O2 and I ruined many drill bits before I understood that even slow air cooling will not anneal it to usable hardness.

I think spheroidized would be best for drilling and grinding. It should also be easier to get all of the carbon into solution on subsequent heat treating. Faster means less grain growth. I'm going to try spheroidizing on my next razor.