Thread: Work hardening

Okay now I know where you're going. I agree with Philadelph. For the section thickness at the end of all that processing, the thermal cycling in preparation for heat treatment and the final hardening and tempering will reset to zero any gains made by attempts to work harden the material.

The choice is to work harden the material and risk it coming apart during the forging/peening, or to use the regular methods of heat treatment to achieve hardening. I haver the feeling that you would fracture your piece long before coming close to a razor thickness.

But, if you consistently anneal the material, and choose the right material in the first place, during the forging, you could theoretically do it. Each time you anneal the material you eliminate any hardness gained by forging. It would be an exercise in proof of concept and not very practical given the ease of doing things "normally."